Predestination
by Antje
Summary: Book One. Revised version.
1. One

The Zeta Project | Book One | Predestination (Revised Edition, Nov. 2003)  
Dedication: For my Captain, whose feet were always firmly planted in the storm, and who rode courageously upon the sea. C.H.D. 17/7/96 – 04/9/02

Original A/N: A long, book-length fanfic, which is the first I've ever written. If you'd like any extra information about the story, how I wrote it, or what something means, feel free visit the website address in my profile or mail me. My sincere thanks to the TZP fans who've taken the time to read this.

A/N 26/11/03: Now that this book has stretched out to accommodate five follow-ups, I thought it was time I paid it a little attention. Since the story has run so deep, I've returned to the beginning to add a few ideas that I didn't think to add before, also to repair as many typos as I could. Although I think of it now as a 95,000-word prologue to the rest of the series, it seems to have its own simplistic charm. My hope remains that someone will read it again and enjoy it again, and that someone reads it for the first time. 

"Many a night I saw the Pleiads, rising thro' the mellow shade." -- Tennyson, _Locksley Hall_

  
Part One  
1) 

Ro Rowen closed her eyes, inhaled deeply the fresh, still night air, with all the spicy scents, and the hint of some late-blooming wildflower, almost like jasmine, perhaps a late-blooming lily. Despite being unable to see where the path beneath her heavy, sore feet led her, she was unafraid and was able to keep moving. The more she thought of walking with her eyes closed, the more it pleased her; it was like a challenge, a game that one could play with oneself. But she began to stumble her steps, from far too much thought, too tired a brain to be productive, and reached out her arm to Zeta's, just in time to balance herself. She was forced to fling open her eyes.   
"Are you all right?" Zeta asked quietly. He halted his steps, observing his friend in calm trepidation.  
All that Ro saw before her was a tree-lined pathway, a wide dirt road that lead no where particular. A road, therefore, like a lot of the roads she'd seen. The leaves of roadside trees hung loosely at the tips of the branches, flittering ever so slightly in the late August breeze, and occasionally one leaf would flicker, momentarily touched by the beams of the bulbous moon high and distant overhead. She thought only of the moon, the loneliness of it, and consciously ignored her concerned companion until he spoke again.  
"Are you tired?" Zeta persisted in his questions, reluctant to keep following Ro as she moved onward, her gait steady and unwavering. "Do you want to stop for the night?"  
She looked over her shoulder at the synthoid, in his normal young-man hologram mode. The dead black eyes gaped in a patient attentiveness. The deadness of his eyes sometimes haunted her. She saw it in herself sometimes, yet she was human. "I'm fine. Let's just keep going. I was just thinking, and lost my footing for a second. See what happens when you think?"  
Zeta promptly caught up with her, and they walked side-by-side in silence for some time. Out beyond the hills of lower West Country, a barnyard dog howled and barked. Zeta's ears perked at the noise, like he was himself canine. Ro had no doubt he could transform to one if he set his hologram to do the chore. She'd probably seen it before, but couldn't remember. His images blended into each other after a while, like their days of being on the run.  
The dog was forgotten, and Zeta rested his glare to Ro. "What were you thinking?" He thought she looked sad and--what was the word?--homesick? For what home? She had known so many places, but so many places did not make a home.  
"The seasons are changing," she said, most sullenly, her voice weak from over-use through a long, thirty-six-hour day. "Fall will be here soon."  
"Fall?"  
"Autumn. When the leaves fall. We call it fall."  
"Of course. And after fall comes winter. I believe it's called the Winter Solstice, generally celebrated by pagans and others on December twenty-first, or, in astrological terms, the day the sun goes into the mutable sign of Sagittarius."  
Ro growled. "Have I told you lately, Zee, that I love your prolific sense of detail?"  
He noted her sarcasm. He was very used to noting her sarcasm by now. "I'm sorry. I was only trying to help. What is it about fall that makes you sad?"  
Ro suddenly stopped, and Zee took one step forward before turning to face her. She snickered, and when she spoke her tone was her characteristic snide. "I'm not sad. Have you ever known me to be sad for more than ten minutes together?"  
"No," he said, after running through his memory banks. "Occasionally you would be woebegone, but never sad. You're also never poetical. You were talking of autumn as though you were a poet."  
Ro smartly began walking away from Zeta just as he started to spout out a poetical work, which mentioned autumn and a lake, other words she didn't pay attention to. She huffed, annoyed. Zeta wouldn't understand what she was remembering, and she didn't want to explain. It would take too much time, too much energy, rehashing the past, and the past--her past--wasn't worth the breath she would waste telling it.  
A few meters later, they were out of the thick night woods and the ceiling above their heads became clear, the sky visible. High corn fields ran along each side of the deserted dark road. Ro was glad to have her personal synthoid bodyguard along for her protection. The roads could be dangerous, with robbers, the occasional wild, rabid animal, and not to mention the fact that she was geographically lost without Zeta's built-in atlas. She needed him to get around.   
Ro lifted her eyes again, but kept up the trick of walking without looking where she was going. She squinted to the midnight-blue firmament, speckled by bright stars and far away planets.  
Zeta rose his head up too, and kept up Ro's slow, night-time pace well enough. He had noticed, while they were traveling together, that while walking at night she always walked slower, less on her guard--less afraid agents from NSA were after them. Normal humans, Zee noted, kept sleeping hours of a rigid schedule, opting to be awake while the sun was up, and sleep while the sun was down. Ro was not a normal human.   
"I see the Pleiades," he said, pointing. "A beautiful cluster of stars in the neck of the constellation Taurus the bull. They are also called the Seven Sisters. In Greek mythology they were the seven daughters of Atlas and Pleione. They were pursued by Orion and transformed into a constellation to save them. That's why they're huddled together like that. Seven Sisters. A family of stars."  
"Zee, listen up," Ro said, and he recognized her harsh, cruel voice. "Can't you just look at something and not even see it for what it really is?" Ro swooped her left arm to encompass the horizon before them and the awing space overhead. "Can't they just be stars for once?"  
"I'm sorry," he apologized, knowing it was right to do so. "Don't you think it's a nice story?"  
Ro sighed. "You're hopeless, tin man. You know that?" She knew that if Zeta was human, purely human, he would be a studious, serious sort of man, forever a connoisseur of internal thought; he would be a sentimentalist to the very core. Ro tried to keep from frowning, but too much of the day had been a great disappointment. But they had gotten away, hadn't they? Escaped yet again. She watched Zeta with interest, since nothing ever phased him, not physical exertion, and for that she was scornful and jealous. She hated to admit her teenage body was feeling like a load of bricks, tired as she was growing. It'd been so long since she'd slept she couldn't even remember back so far. But Zeta was untouched by time. He looked at her playfully, whimsically, as an excited little boy.  
Using one of his hologram tricks, Zeta procured in his clenched fist a gleaming object, and the yellow and white beams shone out between his tight fingers as he lifted his arm before Ro. The light was so bright, it reflected as far as the corn along the roadside and disappeared between the thick sheaves, and moths and insects glinted in the light as they flew through. Ro stared at the light from its hidden place, mesmerized, even though she knew it was a mirage, but the light was so beautiful, so clear, it soothed. Zeta turned up his hand, opened his fingers slowly, exposing the bright, beaming star floating gently above his fake human palm. He lifted his hand to his lips and blew gently. The star floated up, like a bubble caught on a soft breeze, up and up, until it was a mile or so above. Suddenly, the star exploded in a quiet brilliant flash, and thousands of little stars broke off and fell, tiny sparks of heavenly light, into the endless country fields surrounding them. Ro thought it looked like the sky was snowing starflakes.  
"Well," Ro spoke, feeling a calmness over her tired nerves, smiling kindly at a hopeful Zeta, "you do have your fine points."  
"They're only tricks," he chided himself modestly.  
"If I could do parlor tricks, I'd have left you to fend for yourself long ago. I'd have it made in the shade," she laughed at herself, "as they say."  
Not far off, they found an old abandoned barn, just a few steps from the road. Zeta determined it would be a fine place for Ro to rest for the night. Though she was stubborn, saying she was fine to walk until morning, Zee wouldn't hear of it. Somehow she was thankful.  
Typical of him, he expounded on his reason. "Humans must have a normal state of unconsciousness to function properly, to think clearly."  
"And I need all the clear thinking that I can get," Ro said. "All right, I get it, I'm going." She began to climb the rickety ladder that led to the upper level hay loft. Zeta remained on the dirty wooden floor below, as if to keep watch. Ro rolled her eyes, wondering what in the world he might think would be out in the middle of no where. But, then again, if they were out there, what else could be? She heard that strange mechanical noise, a static sort of sound, which told her he had changed from his man hologram into his synthoid self: a tall, scarecrow-like frame of nearly indestructible platinum-colored metal, and a narrow, featureless face, save for the two white hollow eyes.  
"Zee," she called, after stumbling over the last ladder rung and into the dusty loft. There they were, those two white eyes, round and circled in black.  
Zeta tilted his face to hers. His light sensors adjusted to perceive Ro in adequate illumination. "Yes?"  
"Wake me up at the first signs of dawn, would ya? It's been a while since I've seen a sunrise."  
"Of course, Ro. My internal readings tell me that sunrise tomorrow will occur at six-fifty-one." He cut off his speech abruptly when his companion appeared disinterested. He paraphrased instead. "Sunrise. Yes. Goodnight." 


	2. Two

2) 

There had been no need for Zeta to awaken Ro the few minutes before the eastern sky lightened and stirred with the luscious colors of a new dawn. Ro awoke on her own, startling herself out of a hazy nightmare, dreaming of a time when she had been years younger, attached and branded by labels of an unforgiving society. She shook her head, running her thin fingers, with unkempt nails, through her blonde hair.   
"I won't think of those things now," she told herself. "I won't think of them again, ever. There is nothing, really, to think about."  
As long as you keep running from your past, though, you're never going to forget.  
"I hate that voice inside my head," Ro mumbled, groggily, then let out a loud yawn.  
The synthoid below, lounged against the door of a twentieth-century unused horse stall, heard the shuffling, detected the movement of a human, he quickly recalled Ro, the barn, the day before. He transformed back into Zee the human shape just as Ro was stretching down the ladder. A rung near the end of the ladder had shifted loose, and Zeta was able to detect it just in time to save Ro from a bone-jarring fall. He scooped her off the ladder as she was slipping on the broken piece, and set her carefully on her feet.  
"I'd have fifteen broken bones if it wasn't for you," she told him. "I'm a klutz."  
"No, you're just--" he paused, and shoved his hands in the pockets of his vibrant violet-blue great coat. He didn't want to provoke her.  
"Well, go on, say it. I'm what?"   
It wasn't too early in the morning for cranky Ro banter after all.  
"You're human," he pronounced. "Humans are bound to take a stumble. It is only right, considering the gravitational pull of the earth."  
"Wait a minute," Ro said, riled. "You can't say that getting into the occasional scrape is just a human thing. It seems I remember you hanging off a few high-story buildings, getting caught under boulders, and generally doing all the stupid things that humans do."  
Zeta's typically stoic expression suddenly brightened. "Really?"  
Ro was amused he'd be so pleased to hear he was closer to being human than he thought, especially in a way she wished wasn't human. She brushed off the idea and the grimy barn dust, and asked him what time it was. She could see for herself, through the cracks in the beams of the barn wall, the few open windows, and the ajar side door where they'd entered last night, that it was nearing dawn. The morning was appearing, silver and sleek, like a new bullet that brought sun and life to the dry, needy planet.  
"Sunrise is soon," Zeta said. "As near as now."  
"Good. Back to the loft, Zee. It's the best place, I think. Clear picture of the east. Come on." She started for the ladder, watching that tricky spot that had almost caused her a serious ankle problem.  
"Ro?"  
"What?" she grumbled.   
"Why is this sunrise important to you?" He watched as the girl made herself comfortable upon the loft floor, just before the high hay gate. She defied human logic, he thought, when she set upon the edge of the window, dangling her feet outside, free in the chilly, damp morning air. "Of all the sunrises you have seen, why this one?" Zeta nestled himself into the stiff, nearly moldy hay, a foot away from the edge of the window. He was patiently awaiting a response that didn't seem likely to come.  
"Of all the days I've ever seen," Ro said, "it was this morning, this day, years ago, that I decided my life needed a radical change. And I had to be the one to bring that about. See?"   
It was all she dared say of the subject. She thought about those changes as she watched the sun rise slowly. She thought of home and her lost family, and recalled all the happy memories of her youth that she could, while the sun dripped over the horizon. The countryside slowly came alive with every passing minute, every new glimmer of fresh golden light eroded a night's mystery. Ro could still recall how the touch of her old wool blanket felt against her chin as she tried to sleep that first night on the road. The wool was rough, and she was not used to it. First nights are always the worst, she knew, and she eventually grew used to the scratchy wool. The first rays of sun fell upon the top of her brow, and she was blessed in its warmth. The wool blanket and that first night seemed like another lifetime ago, and that painful time made living for the present sunrise, the gentle caress of the sun, all the more fantastic.  
"I see," Zeta said, easily placated. "The philosophy is not lost on me, nor the spirituality. You see each sunrise as a chance to change your life. To you it represents a freedom." He paused, even with words still formed in his analytical program. "Do I bore you, or can I continue to speak?"  
"Speak. Don't speak. Whatever."  
His lip twitched. For a moment she saw amusement in his otherwise pitted eyes--synthoid, robot eyes. It'd been a few days since she bothered to look anyone else in the eye--any human, that is. But she knew what was different between Zeta's eyes and any other humanoid. Looking into a human's eyes and you inevitably perceived some hint, whether vague or startlingly strong, some hint of their soul existing. But with Zeta there was no soul in his eyes. Ro was always surprised, startled even, when she would look at him and see an emotion. It was almost like, for just a fraction of a second, she could believe he had a soul. A fraction of a second was never long enough, and the feeling and hope she clung to faded.   
Zeta could not contain his robotic intuition. "Is there something on your mind, Ro?"  
"Yes," she said coolly, "and no."  
"Why do you use a contradiction?"  
"It's really funny, and I'm sure you'd be laughing--if you could laugh."  
"I am capable of laughter," he threw in out of defense.  
"It's funny because I've been thinking about what I was like when I was so much younger."  
"And you were comical then?"  
"No," Ro spat, sick of the constant literalism. "But I used to be a child, a little girl, with dreams and such. Now I've been wondering what's happened to that child, and what's happened to those dreams. Did I lose them? Are they still there? Do I even remember what they are?"  
There was a long, still minute or two that passed. Birds, like magpies and some ravens--Zeta could name every breed--began to cackle through the new morning. The robot steadily gazed at his friend, observing frame after quick millisecond frame of her movement, or the way the invisible northwestern wind would shift her hair, or she would twitch her finger, a foot, or a miniscule fuzz on her black shirt would flitter. No movement did he miss.  
"Ro?" he asked suddenly, breaking the passage of silence.   
Ro lifted her head from the sill of the hay gate window. "Huh?"  
"What do you want?"  
"What do you mean?"  
"Do you want to--to stop? To stop running. If you turn yourself over to the NSA, I'm sure they would be more than willing to give you a plea bargain. You could---"  
"No, nothing like that." Ro sighed. He really wouldn't understand. "It'd be best if I tried to explain, I suppose. Don't you see? I couldn't leave you now."  
Zeta shifted a little, like to become more comfortable. He felt no pain, had no blood circulation, no muscle, he could not be uncomfortable, only emotionally.  
"It was a very long time ago that I gave up my little girl dreams. It's silly, anyway, to be a little girl. You wake up one day and then suddenly you're in another world, you're someone else."  
Zeta was empathetic, for here was something he understood with uncommon familiarity, unknown to any other Infiltration Unit. He had "woken up" one day as well, deciding he would no longer be a synthoid of destruction.  
"Well, since I don't have dreams of my own, I realize that all I have are your dreams now, Zee." Ro tilted her head against the frame again, blinking slowly, to push away the tears. "It's more important to me now that you get your freedom than it is that I ever--" she shrugged away the unspoken words.  
Zeta tried to fill in. "Ever have a normal life?"  
Ro's uncertain nod all but confirmed his suspicions. "But I think I kissed that possibility goodbye ages ago."  
"Thank you, Ro, for your devotion to me. As long as you feel you're of some use, I appreciate your staying. But if you ever feel you're not living enough, we will find a way for you to return to the world."  
Ro's cynical mind was hard at work, destroying any hope that the world was worth struggling for, and that the freedom and cleared name of a synthoid robot was all she had to live and die for. That, to her, was living enough. "The world is a shabby and doomed hole, Zee. I'm better off out of it. How do I know I'd make it better?"  
"How do you know you wouldn't?" he challenged.  
Ro had no answer to give him, not even a sarcastic one.  
"Ro," he began, "what were your dreams, as a child? What did you most want? Do you remember?"  
For a moment she managed a weak smile. "Sure, I remember. Breakfast." She rose to her feet, still sore from the six hours or so of walking they did yesterday, out of a city to the west, where they had left Agent Bennett cursing the air as they rode away on a hovercycle. Ro could then almost laugh at the look on Agent Bennett's square, leathery face. And how she wished they'd still had the bike! It'd been an unfortunate occurrence that the one machine they decide to "borrow" for their getaway purposes happened to come down with an electrical malfunction in the engine. She recalled the ache in her toe when she kicked the useless hunk of metal as she left it on the side of the road, some eight miles back.  
"You are hungry," Zee summarized. "We will have to find something to eat." His stared off into the distance briefly, obviously scanning information from his database. "We're six miles from the nearest village. There's a stream not far from here. We could catch trout."  
"You could catch trout," she said. "But you wouldn't have to eat the trout. I would. No thanks, Zee."  
"And there is always corn," he said, not surprised Ro's rejection of the raw grain came in a disgusted "blech" from the back of her throat.  
They began to head toward the ladder that would take them out of the loft and back into the wide open country. As she was about to step on the ladder, Zeta stopped her, pulled her back from the edge.  
"Someone's coming," he said. "Get down."  
Ro scrunched to the dusty floor, sparsely covered in stale hay. Zeta sprawled out beside her on his stomach, his peer just over the edge of the loft to the floor below. A shadow appeared in the doorway. Zeta observed the image, realizing it was none of the feared NSA agents, but he was not entirely convinced this stranger's presence was completely harmless. He set his fingers over Ro's forearm to settle her. She shivered and held her breath.   
It was funny, she thought at that peculiar time, how often someone was fighting for their freedom, in simple little ways, like just trying to get out of a hay loft in one piece. 

--

Note

"As near as now."  
When I wrote this into the revised edition, back in September, I picked up on it, and decided to use 'near as now' as the title to the sixth book. Zeta's so clever.


	3. Three

3) 

Zeta looked at Ro, she looked back. Without using words, having known each other for so long that sometimes words just became unnecessary, Zeta wanted to know what she should have him do. Ro clutched his arm tighter for a brief moment, then loosened her grip entirely.   
"Go," she said, and added a nod. "Find out what he's doing here. I'll join you two in a minute, probably with tea."  
"Lovely," Zeta commented. Ro shielded her eyes as Zeta transformed into a more appropriate figure, the little nine-year-old boy, the spitting image of his legal age hologram. The little boy Zeta would fit in nicely with their unexpected company: a fresh teenager.  
The farm was deserted, and had been for at least thirty years, Ro thought. So who was this kid? What'd he want? Ro didn't trust children. They were always so snoopy, never minding their own business. And she knew, as she had once been one of those snoopy children. She could never keep her hands calmly at her sides, never refrain from asking a rude question, never "hold her tongue" or wait to be spoken to before blurting out information that would only be pertinent to a child's life. She huffed, tired of fighting with the memories of her past, and watched as Zeta, friendly as any human child, greeted the frightened newcomer.  
"Hello," Zeta said, putting on the innocent airs of any little boy. The sick thing was, Ro contemplated, so little of Zeta's innocence was an act. "Who are you? Wutcha doing here?"  
The youngster had no reply. He cowered into the corner. Ro thought she saw his freckles jump from the bridge of his nose to the back of his neck. She hated to see scared children. It was true she didn't like them, but she had also once been a very frightened little girl, and the memory of that could create a powerful empathy if she let it. Right now she wouldn't and couldn't let it. She frowned to herself. Perhaps she had done the wrong thing sending Zeta down for greetings. Zeta was friendly, to be sure, but there was something earnest in his manner that humans didn't know how to deal with, even though they didn't know that what they were looking at was only a hologram, that a robot lay under the image. Ro jerked to begin rising, but stopped herself, as she was watching Zee, just out the corner of her eye.   
A sudden movement he had made reminded her of something long ago, something her brother used to do. But what was it? She hadn't even known her brother, or had she? Why was it so familiar?  
She gasped when the apparition of her brother appeared on the barn floor below. There he ran in a misty translucence, looking over his shoulder behind him, as though pursued, but he giggled and laughed. He was as faded and colorless as any of her memories, but this wasn't a memory. This was real. She wanted to call out to him, and she reached out her arm as if to grab him, though he was so far away. His appearance began to fade, growing fainter and fainter as it reached the eastern end of the barn, where the sunlight swallowed him.  
Had it really been him? Ro was so very unsure. She'd never really seen him before, not as the child the same age as the one ghost just before her. Could it have been him? Somehow she was convinced it was, and no other explanation would account for it. She didn't believe in ghosts, she didn't believe that spirits haunted the earth. Maybe spirits, she thought in great dismay, just haunted people. Ro put her face into her elbow, sighing.   
Her old and tattered thoughts, as decayed as she could make them, had been creeping into her again from some directionless locale. It was wearing her down, perhaps in ways she didn't anticipate. What was wrong with her?  
Zeta's glare up at her when he had detected a disturbance, and gave away her presence to the newcomer.   
The boy was startled. "Who are you? Are you after me? Did they send you?" He felt the inclination to run, to run for his life like he thought he'd done before, a few days past. But something kept him there. A waiting, a longing, perhaps to be identified and rescued.  
Zeta glanced at the child. "No, we're not after you." He tried to console. "Wait here. I'll be right back."  
The boy was too scared to protest, too afraid they really were going to do something to him that he could not even consider fleeing. He watched as the young boy masterfully wound his way up the ladder like a snake vine, and flop over to the loft. Who were these people? He had only entered the barn for shelter, for a quiet rest out of nature. And he stumbled upon this! It already was a sanctuary for someone else! Good luck would never be his, and he always settled for negative chances. It seemed as though the rest of the world was shunning him. Would he never find a place to belong?  
Zeta left him and returned to the loft, only to find Ro lying face down upon the dirty floor. He knelt beside her, changed his hologram into Ro's more familiar older friend, and waited for her to acknowledge him. But when she did, it was only to ask about the obtrusive child below.  
"Who is he? Did you find out?" she questioned, rolling to her side, preparing to be mentally sound, lest Zee should see right through her cool exterior to the volcanic turbulence within. A hotness inside her was no mystery to Zeta; he knew very well what lurked beneath her, and she despised him for such uncanny, very anti-robotic insight. "What's he want?"  
"Nothing. He's lost. He's a runaway. I'm sure he thought no one was in here."  
It was too coincidental, Ro believed, that they should come across a runaway at that time, when she was having such difficulty dealing with the poignant memories of her own tumultuous childhood. Coincidences were so frequently unfair!  
"He asked me the same sort of questions. Ro," Zeta said, in that sweet and certain way when he wanted something, "maybe you should talk to him."  
Ro was unwilling. She was on the verge of losing her mind, and she knew it. So how could she help the poor kid but not herself?  
Zeta noted her heavy reluctance. "He's scared and unsure of himself. At least you know what it's like out there. You could tell him."  
"Well," Ro lifted her upper half off the floor, leaning back into her hands, "the great thing about kids, Zee, is that sometimes they don't listen." Ro bit her lip, glancing away precipitously, only to meet Zee's eyes again. "Why reserve that to just children, though, right? You can tell anyone anything, offer the best advice in the world, even the stuff they actually want to hear, and what good will it do you? People are bound to do exactly what they want to do, anyway. That's what I did."  
"He's not like you," Zeta insisted. "You're smart, and you knew your options." He ignored her protesting scoff and snort. "He thinks he has no other options. What he needs is someone wise who is willing to point them out and take the time to do it. He's been neglected."  
"I'd been neglected, too."  
"I didn't neglect you," Zee murmured. He was starting to pretend that his patience was wearing thin. Something was disturbing Ro. The distraction was there if only she would accept it.  
"Time, Zeta, is not something we've ever had a whole lot of." Ro waited in anticipation of more words from her counterpart, but she received none. All she had to do, however, was look into his nearly navy blue eyes and feel this intense obligation to do as he had requested. After all, as a robot he never asked for much, did he? Ro looked over her shoulder, stare downcast to the little boy cowering in the corner. He did seem lost, afraid of some unforeseen danger, but Ro felt little or no kinship with his plight. She sighed and gave in, for Zeta's sake, and for the sake of runaways everywhere.  
"All right, Zee, you win. I'll go have a word with the freckle-faced monkey." She began to dust herself off, but her untidy, dirty jeans were hopeless, and her shirt wasn't much better. Her appearance was haggard and an unholy mess, and she was grateful that Zee didn't care how she looked. Zeta attempted to brush and pick a few strings of hay off her pant leg as she stood over him, but she kicked like a mule, wishing he wouldn't fuss. Whatever she was trying to do that she couldn't accomplish by herself, Zee was there, ready to help in any way he could.  
"I'm sorry," he said. "I was--"  
"I know, you were only trying to help. Listen, Zee, if you want me to help this kid you're going to have to keep out of it. Got it?"  
"You must do whatever you think is right."   
Had she just imagined it, or did the synthoid actually look a little hurt as he said that? She really was losing her mind. "I bet you do." She began to toss one leg over the ladder, and realized that this barn was becoming as familiar to her as any other home she'd ever known. The loft was like the top of a bunk bed. It reminded her of day camp she'd attended with or without the popular and irritating Tiffany Morgan. It reminded her of a lot of things she should not be reminded of. One last word to Zee before she disappeared over the edge. "You've learned by now when to stay out of my way." Now if you, Ro continued to think about Zeta, could just stay out of trouble!  
Ro casted a wayward glance at the eastern portion of the barn, opposite the corner where the runaway kid was locked stiff as a board. She kept her stare lingering for just a moment, and saw through the beams of morning sun the dust they had kicked up in their presence, because they had forcibly disturbed something so ancient and peaceful. But her brother, had he been there? No, she told herself. It had not been him. She was imagining things. It happened sometimes, she heard, when a person didn't get enough sleep, they could hallucinate, see things, hear voices. With a sigh, she presented her precious attention to the kid. He drew up close to her, but not too close. Perhaps she looked more inviting than innocent little Zeta, and she found that terribly difficult to believe.  
He was maybe thirteen, judging by his height, the shape of his face gaining an adolescent bone structure: a chin about to go square, a brow about to expand. But his ears still stuck out and were nearly above his eyes, so he looked out of proportion. Most teens do look awkward, Ro thought quizzically. She must've looked a fright at thirteen, all gangly, short, walking gracelessly, with ape-like arms and broad shoulders. But this kid had nothing on her.  
"What's your name?" she asked casually.  
"Mike," he said. So he didn't know who these people were, but at least he felt something with this girl in front of him. She looked angelic, with a corona of bright blonde hair, all crowned and glowing with the sunlight hitting her from behind. Did she have wings, did she have a wand? He didn't care, he didn't want to believe so. She was old enough to be relied upon, he knew that, but he didn't know if he should trust her.   
"All right, Mike," Ro gave him a winning grin, "what's your name?"  
The kid huffed, let lax his arms and hands, as though defeated. "Jas. My name is Jas."  
"That wasn't so hard, was it, Jas?"  
Jas did not like to be teased, not matter how harmlessly. He flushed hotly. "Maybe not for you. What's your name?"  
"I'm Ro. The freak in the loft is Zee."  
Jas shifted his nervous, bloodshot eyes to the loft. Zeta, no longer exposed in the little boy appearance, waved at him like they were neighbors passing on a small-town sidewalk. If Jas wondered what had happened to the little boy who'd talked to him before, he wasn't asking. And he wasn't wondering. As far as he knew, that little boy was still up there, and was an entirely different entity.   
"What you two doing here? Is this where you live?"  
"No, are you kidding? We're actually from the Caribbean. Zee's an island prince, and very well respected among his clan." If Ro could do nothing else in life, she could really tell a convincing lie, but the fatness of the lie depended solely on the gullibility of the attentive party. It wasn't so much lying, Ro weighed, as it was telling a story. Sometimes stories and make believe were the only things she had.  
"What would a prince be doing in a hay loft in the West Country? I mean, this is Oregon, isn't it? We don't even have palm trees." Jas was clearly not buying a bit of the lie, but he was having fun at playing along..  
Perhaps her eyes had given her away, something unconvincing in her expression. She would have to work on that. Children were not as credulous as she suspected. Had she been when she was thirteen? It was too difficult to remember. It was four years ago. Too far back. Anything before the age of fifteen she considered a separate life. "Where you heading, Jas?"  
"Nowhere." He stopped, scanning her face for signs of the kindred. "I don't know." The burlap sack he had slung over his shoulder fell to rest beside his leg, where he had stooped to drop it. The sound of glass clanged. What in the world did he have in there, bottles of Yoohoo and rolled up comic books?  
Ro had an idea. Was it a good one? No, probably not. But it would do, like most of her ideas would do. She wasn't an idea maker. That was always Zeta. But she had told him bluntly to butt out. And she'd meant it. "Well, Jas, do you like to fish?"  
"Fish?" Poor, tired and hungry, Jas was swooped into confusion. The last thing on his mind was fish, and it was not at all what he expected Ro to say.  
"Yeah, fish. Zee knows where there's some good trout fishing nearby. You up for it? I hear trout for breakfast is quite the thing among mountain ruffians." Ro almost laughed as she said it. The very idea of her fishing! And not only that, but the image of Zeta fishing! It was enough to burst her belly. But she refrained, though it took all her strength to seep the image of country Zeta from her mind. 

--

Note

West Country  
A title I never bothered to explain until . . . well, I don't remember. It's everything in the US that's west of the Mississippi.


	4. Four

4) 

Zeta was promptly fetched, and he merrily began leading the way south of the abandoned barn, through an old paddock. He loved to lead. Ro loved to linger. She had tried to teach him the fine art of purposeless meandering, but the robot never fully grasped such a simple nineteenth-century Victorian concept. And Ro wasn't entirely sure she understood it completely, either.  
The field was high with goldenrod, sprouting purple and white clover, blue bachelor's buttons and a canopy of Queen Anne's Lace. Zeta picked at one of the flowers, popping off its flat white-blooming head from a long and nearly leafless stem. While keeping up their equal steps, Zeta fastened the wild flower behind Ro's ear, where it made a fashionable ornament. Ro despairingly said she felt like a hippy, but reluctantly left the flower where it was. It reminded her of being a little girl, playing in an overgrown field much like that one, out in the impossible to forget town of Hillsburg. And she would assemble daisy tiaras and dandelion chains, and wear them like a fairy queen, until she was called inside for supper by Mrs. Morgan.  
"Queen Anne's Lace," Zeta said, and Ro felt a lecture coming on, and she wasn't disappointed, "is a great ancestor of the carrot. Did you know that, Jas?"  
Jas shook his head. Ro looped an arm around the boy's shoulder, leaning in to whisper. "He goes off on these weird tangents. They wouldn't let him be a teacher in the Caribbean, and he's become really bitter about it. Just let it go through one ear and out the other. You'll be all right." Jas looked at her, grateful for the advice. It was high time the kid was taught how to properly tune out the voice of an elder, anyway. Ro felt she was doing a great service unto impressionable Jas.  
Zeta continued, oblivious to the lack of concern his companions harbored. "Of course the root of the wild carrot is strong, and has the appearance of a garden carrot, but it's inedible. I'm sure it must taste very bitter." He talked idly of taste, of bitterness, but he had no sense of taste. He could only imagine what was bitter, what was sweet, what was salty. "Most of what humans think is taste is actually smell." He had only a limited sense of what could barely be called "smell," only a module built-in atop his head that could decipher certain smells and compute to what object they were related. But heightened were two other senses, arguably the weakest of the human senses: hearing and sight.   
"How much farther to go, Zee?"  
"The woods are just ahead, and the river is but few feet within."  
Ro was already sick of walking and the day had not even really begun. Couldn't they at least try to invest in some affordable mode of transportation? Even a horse and buggy would suit her fine. But get Zeta near anything that moves and he'd inadvertently have it blown to smithereens within the next few days, sometimes hours.   
For whatever odd reason, thinking of cars and transportation, she began to recall the hazy memories of the Morgans, how she was driven to school by her foster father, just so he'd be sure she went. It was horrifying, those tense ten minutes in the car with him, with any of them! And why was it the Morgans always assumed their foster daughter would not go to school, and spend all day learning useless things like geometry and English lit? Was she that rebellious as a child? Although she couldn't really remember, she figured she must have given off a fractious vibe, something that would make everyone frustrated and angry at her. When had she become so unworthy of trust? She had never been dishonest; she had only been lied to so often that she came to believe dishonesty was how everyone worked. All people would treat you dishonestly, without respect, whether or not you deserved it. The Morgans had been no different. And neither was Rosalie Rowen, really, and Ro sighed to herself. She casted a peer and Zeta, feet away from her, looking for himself at the mountain range that dotted the distance, all blue and hazy in the dust of the temperate climate. While touching a batch of wild carrot, a butterfly alighted on his finger, like a present from nature. Zeta was mesmerized by the insect, observing it closely with his scientific mind, an excited entomologist. Ro smiled to herself, caught off guard at the tenderness of the flawlessly inhuman robot. He might be the only being in the world who wasn't repelled by her, who respected her unconditionally, just as she was. Zee lifted his arm as a light breeze drifted lazily over the meadow, and the butterfly departed his outstretched hand, to be lifted on the wind, and by it carried away.  
"Some moments are so beautiful," Ro thought to herself. "There are times when everything in the world works, and fits together so nicely. A picture like a poem. The finishing of a sublime puzzle."  
She was getting sentimental and couldn't stand it. The sadness of missing something in herself caused this ample hole inside of her to be filled with gross sentimentality. To change her selfish thoughts to some other subject, she looked at Jas, and called out to him as he was a few paces ahead of her.  
"So where are you from, Jas?" she asked, hoping it wasn't so snoopy a question to rise his defensive teenage angst.  
"Glenview," he answered promptly.  
Ro tried to think of where Glenview was exactly, but came up empty-headed. She assumed it was close. "When do you think you'll go back?"  
"Don't know that I will," Jas said. He didn't want to say why. Besides, a girl like that, who was not much older than he, out on her own with a peculiar male companion, surely would understand private afflictions.   
Zee returned to them, feeling as light as the wispy clouds above. He had no cares, no worries, not at the moment. Dr. Selig, Agent Bennett, the NSA, his old life . . . all were pushed away a billion miles or more. For a moment he felt the proverbial taste of freedom, and relished in the sparse allowance. He threw an arm over Ro's shoulder, happily content. Ro did not tuck away, but was glad for the affection, but wondered what illusive goodness had ensnared Zee.   
Zeta watched their freckled charge with wide eyes, scanning this and that. "What's in the sack, Jasper?"  
Ro flashed a grin to herself. The name Jasper didn't suit their new friend. Jas did, perhaps, but not Jasper. "Is that really your name--Jasper?"  
The kid nodded, a bit shame-faced. "It is."  
"It's so old-fashioned. Like ancient backwoods American icons, sitting on low log cabin porches, with a shot gun on their lap and a spittoon at their ugly, curled feet. And--and no teeth, dirty, wide-brimmed hats, and tobacco stains along the front of their shirts."   
Zeta attempted to laugh, and it came out sounding forced and unnatural. Ro glared up at him. He needed more practice laughing. It was true, however, that together they did not find much to laugh about.  
"Well, I didn't give myself that name," Jas replied to Ro's thorough tale. He liked her; she was bigger than life. That's what he wanted to be, bigger than life itself. Back at his home, he knew he'd never get the chance to prove he was anything but Jasper, the useless trouble-maker. Instead of wallowing in thoughts of home, he thought instead of the peculiar man beside Ro, whose name was Zee. He walked with an awkward gait, as though with stiff, inhuman legs. In his dark overcoat, with the sun beating hotly upon him, this Zee did not even break a sweat. "Aren't you warm, mister?" Jas ventured to ask. He was amply intimidated by this looming father-figure, but refused to let his shyness show. He had to be super tough now that he was on his own, master of himself.  
"No," Zeta replied. Ro elbowed him in the side, undetected by Jas, as a gentle reminder that he was not being who he ought to be. "Well, maybe a little. It is twenty degrees Celsius out here." Zeta quickly tried to cover knowing the temperature so easily. "At least that's what I would--think." The word 'think' did not often escape his lips, because he did not just think, as in he did not just believe or guess when it came to the scientific, the non-fiction, he only knew things. All he knew were facts, figures; in his thinking module there was no vague gray space.  
Jas kept a steady but surreptitious gaze on Zee all the rest of the way to the creek. He was convinced, by the time they made it to the stream, that Zee was no man at all. Zee was either an android or--maybe!--a synthoid, but not human. No way.  
Zeta trekked on ahead downstream a ways, leaving Jasper and Ro to bait string and branch hooks with grubs for catching lunch, for it was officially lunch time by then. The trout were few, but their bright backs glimmered in the knee-deep water occasionally, and Ro stared blankly into the murkiness. Jas leaned in to Ro, who sat on a boulder high above his, in the middle of the slow and rippled river.  
"Your friend is a little odd," he said. He tried to determine if awareness flooded Ro's blue eyes as he said it, but he deciphered no change.  
"Zee?" Ro momentarily caught Zeta's image behind a leafy green hedge, his blue-violet coat standing out brightly among the verdant wasteland. He never did blend in very well. "Zee's odd, you think? Ha. You've no idea, Jas."  
Jas was not dispelled by this avoidant behavior of Ro's. If anything, it made him more keen to know if his suspicions of Zee were correct. "How long have you known him?"  
Ro had to think about that, as she had never bothered to count the days or months or years since she'd met Zeta and her life was changed forever. Now she blinked as she thought it through. "Two years."  
"How'd you meet?"  
He was nosy, Ro thought to herself. Too nosy. She knew it: all children are nosy little brats. For once she'd like to meet and know the exception to that rule. So far all she met with was disappointment. "Oh, you could say we stumbled across each other."  
"How old are you?"  
"Seventeen." Ro suspired. "I don't like to say that out loud. Makes me feel----" She cut herself off. Did she feel old, really terribly old? No. She felt betrayed by time, and that was all. "How old are you?" She asked the latter question quickly, so Jas would not have a chance to come back with one of his own that she would not feel like answering. People's questions bored and bothered her.  
"Thirteen, just last month."  
Ro decided that enough was enough. "That's about the right time. Most kids run away from home when they're thirteen."  
Jas was startled by this sudden bluntness. If he knew that Ro could be so rudely cunning, he would've played the same game with her long ago, though rough was not who he was. He was too sheepish, too shy; he was a farmer's son who tried to cover exactly how much he was a farmer's son. "How'd you--?"  
"I put two and two together. It's not often someone comes to me with a burlap sack full of belongings, and is as young as you are."  
They didn't have a chance to continue with the elected form of conversation. Ro's reel was sudden heavy, laden with a hooked fish. At once she wrestled with the line, hoping to catch lunch. She was so hungry that even fried fish sounded good to her. She tugged and pulled, Jas hooted and howled with feverish excitement. Zeta dashed over, moving stealthily along the rocky shore of the creek. But by the time Ro pulled the line from the water, the fish had stolen away, escaped--and with her bait!  
Zeta would've laughed for the second time that day, had Ro not seemed so disappointed that he was sure she would burst out into tears. Instead of girlish sobbing, however, she facilitated her tough and walled emotions, slammed the branch fishing rod down upon the boulder, and told Jas to keep trying, while she went off to dig for another grub or worm to bait the line. Zeta met her on the shore, and she watched him for a moment, wondering why he was looking at her so funny. He reached out and laid his hand atop her flaxen mane, giving a little smile. Ro could feel the pressure of his hand upon her, yet it emanated no warmth. She swooped around, to step behind, and reminded him she needed to find more bait.  
"The ground is more damp downstream," he said to her. "You would have better luck finding bait there. But be careful, Ro. Around the bend just ahead the stream meets with another, and the force of the water would be more than a human could withstand. Don't go near that. Maybe I should go with you?"  
"No thanks, I think I can handle digging around in the dirt. You stay and keep Jas company. No doubt his questions will interest you." She saluted and began to trace Zeta's foot indentations in the damp sand. His holographic boots left a wavy impression, and she followed in them, stepping her own petite feet into the prints, all the way downstream, to where he had been before. As she neared she could indeed hear the wild rushing of water, and knew Zeta had been right about the dangerous rapids ahead. She ignored it, and found a stick to start digging for grubs, deep into the soft earth.   
Before she was too far along, and had only started on her second empty hole, she began to hear a whistling sound, then the whistling turned to whispering, barely audible, incoherent and creepy. She looked upstream, but Zeta and Jas were obscured by a protruding rock, a clump of aspen trees and thick undergrowth. It was not their conversation she was hearing. Their words would never reach over the sound of the stream. The voice continued constantly, until it became a cascade of consonants and aspirants. She began to detect not only one distinguishable voice, but at least two others. Ro's skin crawled, her insides tumbled. And she could not remember the last time she had been so fearful of something she did not understand.   
"Hello?" she called out, turning about this way and that, in a full three-sixty. Once she faced the hazy mountain range as it formed on the horizon, the river flowing toward it, the voices cleared away, and all was quiet again. Ro sighed with relief, but her relief was premature.   
"Rosalie."  
Ro wouldn't listen. Instead she began to head toward Zeta, no longer able to face standing there alone. The voice called again. An androgynous voice, neither woman nor man, hissing and faraway sounding, as though it came from the tops of the trees, spoken by the leaves. Ro stopped. She refused to grow angry at herself. This was obviously all in her mind. Why couldn't she get a grip?  
"Reality, Ro," she said aloud to herself. "It's called reality. Hello. You need some of that."  
"Rosalie! Follow me! Rosalie!"  
Ro plugged up her ears with her fingers, but still the voice trickled through. It was as if it was already inside her head. More proof, she believed, that her mind was on the brink of total dissipation. She flung open her eyes, only to see a figure, a woman, dressed in a flowing white robe, hovering over the water, suspended there, staring directly at Ro. Ro blinked, but still the woman was there.  
"Come to me, Ro," whispered the image.  
Ro refused, her feet firmly planted on lovely terra firma, even if it was sandy and grimy, but it was still something she could run on. "Who are you?" she asked. But she knew, some how, she knew! And there was not a cell in her body that wouldn't obey her logical mind and disbelieve what her heart was telling her. That apparition was her very own mother. The fair, long blonde hair of the ghost, the heart-shaped face, the large and round blue eyes, all were Ro's own features, with little insignificant differences here and there. But Ro knew what this ghost wanted her to believe, and Ro fought with all her might to disbelieve, and could not. . . .   
"Mother?" she cooed, with shaky voice and tired breath. "Is that you?"  
"Hello, my Rosalie dear." The drifting figure, translucent and not an inch of her opaque, remained in a hover over the water, and seemed to gain energy from the element. "I've found you, after all this searching."  
"Mother, what are you? What are you?" Ro, lost in the image of the ghost, no longer able to think with her clean-cut logic, steered herself to the large boulder that jutted out over the river, some paces downstream from where she had first dug holes. She had not noticed, but the matronly image had taunted her, bringing Ro closer to the dangerous portion of the river.   
"I'm here for you now. Do you forgive me for leaving you?"  
"Forgive you?" Ro blurted out. A childish emotion swept through her, and suddenly she was a preschooler, craving all the parental attention she'd never experienced. Ro's heart caved in, her brick levies burst, and with that came a flood of hot tears. "Mother, don't leave me now! I need you! I've been so lost."  
"I know. Come closer to me, dear. I'll comfort you now."  
Ro inched up the boulder, not noticing the aches in her knees as they rested against the hard surface, nor did she notice how closely she was to the edge. "Mother, I saw my brother today, too. He ran in front of me. I couldn't catch him. I wanted to." Ro rubbed the sweet salt water from her eyes with the back of her wrist. "I wanted to play with him, to chase him down, like we were kids again and I'd never been taken away. Mother, help me. What is his name, my brother's name? Is he still alive? Are you? Is my father? Where is everybody? I want my family, Mom. I want us together again. I can't remember how it used to be, but I know that it used to be wonderful. Mom, what happened?"  
Her mother said nothing, but held out a hand, nearly within Ro's reach. Ro struggled to grasp it, to feel her mother's touch for the first time since before she could remember. But suddenly Ro drew back her hand, remembering something, something more familiar, with a bigger tie to her than even her mother.  
"Zeta!" she thought. "I remember Zeta!"  
Why was she feeling as though she were falling? Where had Mother gone? What exactly was Zeta? Ro felt a coolness wash her over, like a fresh spring rain in early April, then all the world was a black sphere. 

--

Notes

Glenview, Oregon.  
Otherwise known as Bend, Oregon.

Two years  
While I know TZP started when Ro was fifteen, presumeably in 2041, I kinda stretched things out a bit. They did meet in Oct 2041 (according to my timeline), but since Ro always seemed a little more "grown up" in the second season, I decided it would be about two years later. They are rounding up, however, since it was almost two years. More like a year and eleven months. 


	5. Five

5) 

"Jas," Zeta spoke, interrupting the boy's question. He laid a hand on Jas's plump, rounded shoulder, squeezing. "Ro's in trouble."  
"Ro? How do you know?"  
Zeta knew there was no time to answer, no time to do anything but run downstream to Ro. He dashed along the shore, between rocks, pools and sinking sand, transforming as he ran, back into his normal synthoid form. Before he knew it, he was standing at the spot where Ro had fallen. He scanned the rock for evidence. Finding nothing, he made his way beyond the boulder, heading toward the rapids.   
Jasper was hot on the synthoid's heels. He could make out the top of the Infiltration Unit's gangly metal head; it glinted in the sunlight between the leafy boughs of trees. "Zee!" he shouted.  
Zeta turned, but was not dismayed at Jas's sudden presence. He let out a cautionary hand. "Stay there, Jasper. Don't come closer. I must find Ro." Without a doubt, he knew the kid would follow the instructions. Zeta began to wade through the water, then ran again along the shoreline of the river, past the delta where the river and stream met. The rapids began without warning. The sound of rushing water was tremendous, and Zeta's audio module accounted for it, toning down the background volume, and upped power to the human voice locator.   
"Ro!" he called, as loud as he could. He saw no sign of her fair hair in the water, no sign of her black shirt, no sign of her faded blue jeans. Out in the middle of the rapids, strong enough to stand against the force of the water, Zeta ducked his head under. The water was cloudy and murky, and even with his light adjustments he could still barely see. He searched in infrared. Finding nothing in the electromagnetic spectrum, he switched the search to thermal reading. This finally yielded the result he was looking for. A warm spot in his senses was not far ahead, to the left. It could be Ro. He swam toward it, carried along so quickly by the swift current. But the spot of heat kept moving, ever so slightly, just out of his reach. He sprouted out of the water once, to make sure he hadn't passed her, and she wasn't lying limply along the shore, battered and drowned. But seeing no signs of her, he went under again, even more determined. Ro would not be getting away.   
When he found her, she was downstream another half-mile, flattened against a rock in the middle, at the deepest portion of the river. The rapids had calmed considerably, and the sound of the trickling was almost soothing. Zeta made sure she was alive, and she was, barely.  
"Ro? Can you hear me?"  
She was unconscious, having swallowed and inhaled an excessive amount water. Zeta pressed his hand against her chest, and pushed down, to expel from her lungs some of the liquid lodged there. A cascade of droplets fell from her lips, but not enough.  
"Ro?"  
No response. Instead of letting his mind wander into what might have happened, he returned to his human shape and crawled beside her on the rock. He tilted back her neck to open the passageway to her lungs, pried apart the stiff, cold jaws, and tried his best to suck out as much of the river water as he could from her lungs. A flood of it suddenly entered her mouth, he gathered it, turned away and spit. He believed it was the most horrifying thing he ever had to do to someone, let alone Ro. Undaunted, heroic as any devoted robot would be, he leaned over her again, plugged up her snub nose with his hand, and blew in air.   
Ro coughed immediately, the sensation of being awake and alive taking over her five senses. She felt tired, forlorn, about two inches tall. Was it worth opening her eyes to such an unforgiving world? At first she squinted, for everything outside the darkness of her lids seemed bright, like she had landed in the middle of the sun. Then a fellow human's shape formed in the blinding whiteness. She lifted her limp, pale hand to block out the rays of the sun to perceive who stood over her. "Zeta, is that you? Please say it is. I couldn't stand anyone else doing something like that but you."  
"It's me." Knowing what aches and ailments she was dealing with, Zeta refrained from asking questions.   
She groaned while attempting to move. A wasted effort. "Thank God synthoids don't have germ-ridden mouths full of gross things. You taste kinda like a--a battery, tin man." Allowing the hand to stay over her eyes while they were open, adjusting to the light, she just lied there, shaking and recovering. "Where are we? What happened?"  
"We're two-point-three miles from where you and Jas were fishing. It appears as though you fell in. The current carried you. This is where I found you. I did search, but your journey ended here."  
"I'll have to kiss the rock later to thank it for its divine presence." Suddenly she remembered why she ended up in the water. It was horrifying to recall it, and a rush of emotional pain swept to her every crevice. "Oh no."  
"What is it? "  
"Zeta, I'm in big trouble."  
Zee didn't understand. "How?"  
"I'm losing my mind." She extended her hand to him so she could be helped to her feet, but he declined.  
"I'd better carry you, Ro. You're in no shape to walk. Besides," he said, titling his head sympathetically to her, "the water in this spot would be fourteen inches over the top of your head. And you really are losing your mind if you think I'll let you swim to shore."  
"Fine," she said complacently. Zeta plucked her gingerly from the rock and carried her to the western shore across the wide river. He was reluctant, however, to let her on her feet. She felt small, unstable, and he doubted she would be able to carry herself.   
"I have never seen you more fragile," he noted and gave her a second and closer inspection. Ro wasn't listening. Zee smiled. Ro was asleep. 

--

Note

Zeta . . . breathes?  
This unoriginal synthoid application is explained more in Erasure Attempt:  
_His imitation of breathing was only a result of light construction and modification work he'd done to himself, partly a result of sheer boredom, and a fascination for the act of breathing Zeta couldn't stifle. He fondly recalled the first time he could sigh, and he went about doing it all day, to Ro's annoyance, to his amusement._


	6. Six

6) 

Jasper was resting along the shore, itching fresh mosquito bites and poking at the soft sand with the stick that had been his fishing rod. He'd caught nothing else in Zee's absence. Nothing edible, except the insects caught him. And he was growing impatient. They'd been gone almost an hour. Should he ditch them and move on alone? But he felt they were useful creatures: a synthoid is always useful, though this one was vastly different than any synthoid he'd heard about, and the girl had her strengths as well. No, he decided that he must stay with them as long as he could, and it mattered little which direction they were headed, just as long as it wasn't toward Glenview!  
Jas was not surprised when Zee appeared as a robot--and a synthoid, no less. Throughout the hour he'd been alone, Jas would occasionally remind himself that he'd known, somehow, what sort of creature Zee was. Perhaps his hopes of becoming a robotic engineer in the distant future were not as bleak as he'd thought. He could design better Zetas, better androids, designs that would prove more useful to all of humanity, and not just for wars and terrorists, like expensive toys for the government puppets. Jas knew how far society had to go before they accepted the technology encompassing their lives in daily ways, and he wanted to aid this progress. All Jas needed to do was look at Zeta, the synthoid, to know that humans as a whole still wouldn't accept a robot as an independent being. There was the occasional exception who knew robots could be their own masters, of course, like himself and Ro. He'd heard of such people, but they did not exist in Glenview.  
The rustling of hedges startled Jas, and he was at once on his guard, stick extended like an edgeless sword. He was relieved when he saw Zee return, no longer looking like the robot but looking like the man, a man who cradled a helpless Ro.  
"Is she all right?" Jas questioned in a rush to greet them. Upon his examination, he saw that Ro was asleep, perhaps unconscious, with a few mending crimson scratches across her face and on her bare arms, among the splotches of drying mud. She was soaked to the bone and lifelessly pale. "What happened?"  
Zeta explained the adventure with little verbosity. Jasper was smart enough to gather the information as fast as the robot decreed.   
"Jasper," Zee said, turning his attention to the boy, "did you know what I was?"  
"Oh, yes," the kid smiled at Zee, in the most contagiously mirthful way.  
"Good. I was afraid I would frighten you. I know what people think of synthoids. I don't harm people, Jas. I'm not built that way. I no longer destroy, if I don't have to."  
"I don't know much of infiltration units like you, Zee. We're not supposed to. But I can't help but hear rumors."  
"Of course."  
"I've often thought about studying robotics, and I hope that someday I will. That way, people like me can help people like you."  
"That sounds hopeful," Zeta said, and he meant it. He had more hope for the future generations than the ones who currently ran the world.   
Zeta had set Ro down to the ground, in a fluffed bed of soft, dry moss and layered with branches he'd gathered from an obliging conifer. He set her alabaster hand from her side to her gently suspiring breast, and gave the slim fingers an affectionate squeeze.  
"What will happen to her?" Jas watched Ro in fascination. His larger than life friend seemed so shrunken, so human. He felt sorry for her.  
"She'll be all right." Zee swept from her forehead locks of her damp hair, contemplating the scenario of what must have happened. "She mentioned that she was losing her mind, then she fell asleep. She almost drowned. That river is dangerously deep in some parts. She was lucky to get through the rapids alive."  
Jas watched Zeta's affected state as a result of Ro's accident. "Ro's lucky to have you."  
"She knows that. And maybe it's more the other way around."   
Zeta occupied himself by taking off his blue-violet overcoat. Though not real clothing necessarily, in a tight spot it would have to do, and it was real enough. He laid it over Ro while she slept, then rose with his arms folded over his middle tightly, his lips pursed. Jasper knew he was thinking. He'd never seen a robot so--so caring! Jas watched the hologram man in complete awe, as though he wielded some theistic power. Perhaps Zeta could herd angels and make the heavens sing Psalms.  
Jas finally found the courage to speak, and then it was only jokingly. "Are you sure you're not human?"  
Zeta was flattered. If he was capable of blushing he would have. "I'm sure. Are you hungry?"  
Jas nodded, afraid to admit that his stomach was starting to eat itself.  
"I'll catch a fish for you. Keep an eye on Ro. She may awaken soon. I don't want her to think she's alone."  
Jas sat beside Ro on the moss and high grass. He looked at the girl and paid no mind to the robot wading through the water, strategically fishing, like the way the aboriginals had over a thousand years ago. Ro, however, was still not awake by the time Zeta returned. He carted two large trout with him, one tail in each hand. Their mouths hung open, their eyes filmy and dead. Jas gazed at the lifeless fish, somehow feeling so mortal in the face of their own death.  
Zeta began to gather sticks for making a fire. He took some steps into the woods, gathered dry wood and had flames going in no time. Over scaling the fish, he talked to Jas about Ro, about life.  
"What has she told you, Jas, about herself?"  
"Nothing," replied the boy, not daring to watch as Zee ripped apart the aquatic vertebrae creature. "She's seventeen. She's known you for two years. She said you two 'stumbled across each other.'"  
Zeta tried again to laugh. Just once, boldly; it came out like a flat chord on an antique organ. "Two years?" he restated, and thought about in revered solemnity. "Has it been that long? Look at her," Zeta suggested, and Jas did so, "she doesn't look a day older than when we met."   
Jas looked away from Ro to the hologram man who met his stern gaze.  
"She's a runaway, Jas," Zee pronounced. "Like you."  
Jas wasn't surprised at this new revelation. He had had his previous suspicions. "What's she running from now? You two--you're running from something."  
Zeta couldn't bring himself to answer, because if he had to lie he refused to say anything at all. A lie was something he said when he wasn't being himself, when he was a hologram. And to Jas, he was the synthoid Zeta, not a role. "Why did you run? I know why she did. But why did you?"  
The smell of the cooking trout caused Jas's stomach to let out a loud and rude grumble. Jas covered the squeaky abdomen with his hand, his look to Zeta apologetic. "Sorry," he said, "I'm starving."  
"It's almost ready." Zeta left the cooking for a moment to step over to Ro. He allowed Jas to ponder the question asked, but Zeta didn't mind if it went unanswered. He was more concerned with Ro. The girl was still asleep, and he smiled to himself. Two years! He couldn't believe it. In human terms that was so long--almost twenty-four months, over seven-hundred days, tens of thousands of hours, and they'd hardly been out of each other's sight. After all they'd been through! Not just him, he hardly thought of himself. But poor Ro. It could be a rough life for a human, that of government outlaw, and he respected her cool handling of a nasty, complicated way of existing. They'd grown so used to it. There hadn't been a morning or a night for two years that they weren't looking carefully over their shoulder to see who was lurking, who might be following them, not an hour when they didn't think of NSA agent bounty hunters by the names of Bennett, West, Rush. And for two years she'd been known to the NSA as Infiltration Unit Zeta's 'accomplice', but by then they knew her name, everything about her, and certainly more than Ro knew about herself. The NSA probably knew who her parents were, where her brother was, the Rowens' extended family, probably their genealogical history. All information at their greedy fingertips. Yet, Zeta thought as he sighed, not information enough to prove the innocence of a robot who'd never done any harm. "When will it end, Ro?" he whispered, and Ro twitched in her sleep. "How will it end? What then?" The thought of Ro growing older pained him. The thought of her missing out on life warped him. He prodded her in the side, that part of her ribs where she was most ticklish. Tickling was a fascination to Zeta, since he had no nerve endings he could not be tickled, but he could pretend to be tickled. He poked at her again, and she was finally awake enough to swat at his hand. He was smarted, and rubbed his hand gently, as though he could feel the sting she'd inflicted.   
"What's that smell?" Ro flipped open her eyes, glanced at Zeta, whose presence she was so used to it no longer surprised her, and chose instead to soak in the glorious paradise of their surroundings, the northern end of the deep woods, just at the edge of sagebrush land. She nearly reiterated the question, but no longer required a response. "Oh," she groaned, "trout. Zee, Zee," she wrestled with her weakened arms to rise, "I desperately want some chocolate. Chocolate ice cream. Chocolate donut. Chocolate pudding. Anything!"  
Jasper laughed. "Leave it to a girl to think of chocolate out in the middle of the woods!"  
"Kid," Ro snapped, suddenly restored to her old, cantankerous self, "you're a little too wise beyond your years. Someday someone's going to take advantage of you. Be careful."   
Jas lifted the corner of his lip. He knew what she was saying.  
Ro looked down at what garment she was wearing, and her eyes widened in horror, and she glanced at Zeta. He was wearing his immaculate outfit of gray t-shirt and black pants, but was absent of his beloved long coat. She cautiously touched it at the black collar, and sensed the soft velveteen, like a horse's nose. The jacket felt just as it normally did, whenever she would lay her hand upon it before, but it was always on Zee, never off the synthoid's holographic body. At times she wondered if his favorite coat was only his favorite coat because it was his most-used hologram, and she also wondered if the thing hadn't been glued to him somehow.  
"No," Zeta quickly spoke, "it isn't real, Ro. What of me really is?"  
She drew her brows together quizzically, her small mouth forming a frown. "You breathe, don't you, Zee? You breathe, and it's enough to save a life. My life."  
Zeta had nothing to say. He returned to flipping the snapping, sizzling trout as it cooked on a hot stone set amid leaping orange flames. She would've lived, even if he hadn't done what he did. But this was unspeakable to him.  
With ample strength she rose to her feet, her knees still weak but she wouldn't allow it to show. After going through enough since she was Jas's age, a little harmless near-drowning accident should be nothing consequential. As she looped the jacket over her arm, Ro took a hard gander at herself. There were scratches, bruises, a small rip in her damp jeans. "You know," she announced to her friends, "I had no idea I would come out of that looking so good." Running a finger lightly through her short, cropped hair, she attempted to give it some lift, but it just flopped down again, and she knew the tangled rat's nest was no good. "At least my hair got washed. It smells like fish, though. Everything smells like fish out here! Zeta, if you make me eat fish again anytime soon I will have to rip your arm off." She didn't mean it, of course. There was too much appreciation in her for anything Zee provided.  
Zeta handed a stick with trout skewered on it to a ravenously hungry Jasper. Growing boys needed ample amounts of food, and Zeta knew that. Jasper ate heartily, and Zeta cautioned him to please remember to chew the food, not inhale it. There'd been enough rescued people for one day. He crouched before the fire, poking at the cinders. Ro tried to hand his favorite garment back to him, but he wouldn't take it.  
"Put it on, Ro," he commanded, spoken in a secret authoritative tone he barely utilized. "You're still damp. It's cold in the shade. The sun's getting weaker as it goes down."  
"But----" Ro tried to protest.  
"Please?"  
"It takes too much energy for you to--"  
"Please?"  
She did as was commanded. The hologram slipped over her shoulders fine enough, still in Zeta's size: some inches cresting six-feet, average build. She was not tall herself, but neither was she short, but possessed thin long arms. The sleeves were no problem, then, though the hem of the coat reached nearly to her heels. She spun around in it, admiring herself and allowing Jas, who continued to stuff his face, and Zeta, to admire her as well. A woman always deserves to be admired, especially after a harrowing day. Every day seemed to bring along some other near-death experience for Ro.   
"I can change the color, the style," Zeta informed her. "Anything you want."  
"You don't have to change a thing." She clutched the velveteen collar closer to her neck, and the warmth of the coat seeped through her. In it she felt vigorous, alive, energetic--but still hungry. She refused to believe that the smell of fried fish was actually tempting her taste buds.   
"Have some trout, Ro. You need protein." He skewered some on a slender, knotless stick for her, and she accepted it with great hesitation. "Pretend it's chocolate trout," he suggested.   
Jasper put away most of one trout by himself. Piece after piece he ate. Ro joked he would turn into a fish himself if he wasn't careful, and they'd have to throw him in the river just so he could breathe. He just smiled, then ate more. She huffed, and stared at her fish in detest. Already with three portions floating in her weakly acidic stomach, Ro was feeling better, but doubted very much that trout would ever be enough to make her truly stuffed. Only food you really want to eat does that.  
Jas tossed his utensil onto the fire, then watched as it caught flame. "We going to stay here tonight, or what?"  
"Staying here," Zeta said, his mood still desultory, but he never yielded to any one mood, really. "Ro has no strength to go on tonight. Have you? I don't want to assume."  
Ro approved, even if she didn't want to. "We stay. That's fine. Anyway, I've got things I need to tell you, Jas."  
Jas observed her, his insight trained to an older person's attempts to preach. "Really? Are you going to tell me why you ran away, too?"  
She wrinkled her nose, and shoved Jas playfully on his shoulder. "No, kid, I'm not. That's my business. But I am going to tell you a little bit about my past. It's important for you to understand what it's like out there." Ro's voice grew dark and deep, her tones rounded, her articulation increased. She began to remember what it was like, what she had been through. The tale she weaved was not without its magic and horror and intensity, and Jasper listened to her, his heart and mind open to receive. It was, perhaps, the part of her story where she said she'd almost been shot by her fellow gang members that most snared Jas's attention. He faintly shuttered, but continued to concentrate whole-heartedly. He'd never felt such sympathy for someone before. He was too young, really, to know what sympathy was, and empathy was years away if it ever came, but he was feeling something nameless and new. The images she painted in his mind were not things he wished to encounter in real life. The Big City sounded like a livable nightmare, light years from the small town charm of Glenview, the only place he'd ever known. As Ro's story trailed off to the present, and she'd left out plenty of details, Jasper was nearly moved to tears.  
"You're a saint, Ro," he said.  
She tilted her head, sniffled, uncomfortable with such a childish compliment.  
"No, I mean it," Jas persisted. "The first time I saw you I thought you might be an angel. Now I'm absolutely sure you are."  
Ro kept quiet. She tucked a piece of unruly hair behind her ear. It was silly to feel self-conscious. Ro wouldn't know a halo from a shoe, really.   
"Ro," Jas said, in such great serenity that she looked up at him, "I'm afraid of death. I don't like the idea of dying."  
"No one does," she said. "If you continue on, Jas, the idea of dying is something you're going to have to deal with. There are worse things than being at home with parents who love you. There's the thought of dying. And there's also the thought of dying alone."  
"I know."  
"You could end up like me. No home. No relatives. No brothers or sisters."  
"I have two sisters and a brother--all older than me." Jas stared away, the image of his siblings suddenly so dear to him. He felt his heart swell. He loved his family. What was he doing away from them? Suddenly he felt incredibly homesick.  
"Zeta is all the family I've got," Ro told Jas straightforwardly. She glanced at Zeta, sitting there placidly, the firelight dancing across him, and he looked tribal and a touch formidable. "Not bad family to have, I guess. He's sort of everything rolled into one. Mother, father, brother, sister."  
Jas snickered. "Sister!"  
Playing along, Zeta toyed with his hologram device, suddenly appearing before them in a collaboration of everything Ro had said. A letter jacket from a high school to represent the brother; pearls and checkered pink apron to represent mother; a curled bob of black hair with bows in it to represent the sister; a pipe and thick hardcover book to represent the father figure. Jas giggled, and Ro was moderately amused.  
"Enough clowning around, Zee."  
Zeta flashed back to his other self, breaking into no smile, which only made Jasper laugh harder. Zeta's emotionless jokes could be thought of as beguiling and amusing. But Ro always preferred his innocence and literalism. That was really what she appreciated about Zeta, that he was funny in spite of himself, when he did not mean to be. The more he did not mean to be, the more her laughter grew in volume.  
"Jas," Ro began, "the point is that your family are your best friends. You cannot live your life without having someone there to be your family, whether or not they're actually related to you. You rely on them to be there for you no matter what. You look up to them. You expect them to help you. And you love them." Ro looked away to the dusky earth, picked at stones and watched bugs crawl. She meant what she'd said, only it embarrassed her. "Take it from me, Jas. Being a runaway is a lonely life, especially if you weren't so lonely before. And you weren't. You had your family. You have to decide, and you know well enough that I can't make up your mind for you. That's something you have to do."  
There was quiet. The day was falling, and the birds were out for their evening chatter, like gossiping neighbors high in the tall treetops that swayed in the fresh and crisp breeze. The flicker of the fire, the crackle of the logs, broke the sonorous impression of the natural world that surrounded them. They were so far away from everything mid-twenty-first century. They existed at no present time, no past time, no future time. It was like they were nowhere.  
"Ro," Jas started, then halted but she waited, already knowing what he wanted to say. "I miss them. I want to go home."  
"I thought you'd say that!" She winked. "Jas, I think I'm meant to take you home. How about it, Zee? How far are we from Glenview, anyway?"  
"Glenview is south-southeast, and twenty-two-point-seven-five miles from our precise location," Zeta responded. "It is located in an arid climate known for its cattle land and---"  
"Zee," Ro said as a warning.   
Zee discontinued his elaborate report of Glenview. "We could be there tomorrow, if we find some way to get there."  
"Great!" Jasper exclaimed. His eyes twinkled with hope and happiness, the thought of being loved again by his parents exultant. The imagining was not without its negative reverberations, however: Jas felt panged by fear. "Will they be mad at me, do you think?"  
"No," Ro said, immediately knowing the answer. Her imagination had always provided her with happy endings when she saw fit. "They'll be so thrilled to see you that they won't even think of grounding you, or taking away your VR for a month. And you might actually get to drive when you turn sixteen, too, as long as you stay on your best behavior for three years."  
"Oh, I will. I will!"   
"Why'd you leave, Jas?" Ro dared ask.   
"We had a fight," he said, after starting and stalling a few times to find the right words to explain the misery he had felt a few days ago. What was misery, really, after hearing Ro's tale? He knew nothing of real misery. "I don't do much in my family. I'm kind of--kind of useless. I think they think that I am, too. Stupid and useless."  
"But you're not," Ro said. "You just go home and tell them that you're sorry. And they'll probably say they're sorry too. I'm sure they must be feeling guilty. You'll fit in well with them. They're your family, anyway. They'll love you no matter what. Things will get better. You'll see."  
Jasper hugged Ro tightly. Ro didn't know what to do. She patted his back cautiously, grateful to have been so profound in this young man's life. Hugs always made her feel peculiar; she was not an affectionate sort of girl at all, except with Zeta, perhaps. For a blazing fast moment, Ro wondered why it was that so many people seemed to like her, when she held contempt for so much of the world and most of the human race. Yet, people were intrigued by her. What sort of crime had she committed to be mercilessly punished by being well-liked?  
The three of them conversed for a while longer, until the sky grew dim and black, the stars appeared, and Jasper began to stifle yawns. It was not long before he took up his burlap sack and pulled out a wool blanket to cover himself. Ro remembered her own old wool blanket, that had kept her warm her first nights on the road, away from the Morgans, and felt the insecurity of hurtful memories momentarily devour her.   
Jasper paid her no attention, his mind already half to sleep. He shoved the sack into a makeshift pillow, tucked it proportionately under his head, then curled up under his wool blanket. "Goodnight, Ro, Zee," he said. They told him good night, sweet dreams, and pleasantly reminded him they would try to get him home tomorrow.   
Ro pulled Zeta's great coat tighter around her shoulders. She was not cold, and the fire still cranked out ample warmth, but she felt peculiar, scared. The insecurity she'd felt as a child was still with her, and the memories would not leave her alone. She rested her forehead in her upturned palm, closed her eyes and tried to remember how easy it was to breathe and be alive. She was not that little girl anymore. She was Rosalie Rowen, seventeen-year-old outlaw. A big difference between the two existed, maybe not to some, but at least to her.  
Zeta shifted and threw his stick in the low flames, then peered at Ro. Her head was turned from the firelight, aimed downward, so he could observe her without the impregnable guard. A rare occasion. "Ro," he called softly.  
"Yes, Zee?" She did not look up but rubbed her brow, massaging away the pain the day had vengefully left behind.  
"We should talk."  
She courageously met his gaze, and found it neither contemptuous nor comforting. Her knees were pulled up to her chin, and she wrapped her arms over her shins, shielding herself. "Some how, Zee," she sighed, "I knew you were going to say that tonight. I hate it when you say it, too, because you're always right. We do need to talk." 

--

Note

And a synthoid, no less!  
Gasp! Gulp! A synthoid? Yep . . . see, in my little Zeta world, androids are quite common, but synthoids, the more elaborate, expensive and intelligent android cousins, are still mighty rare. 

Zeta's coat  
Well, I was never able to come up with a good reason how Zeta was able to keep his holographic coat away from him, when in the show it was obvious he had to be touching something in order for it to transfer the holographic signal. If it is possible, it would have to be some kind of HHE thing (haptic holographic emitter). If it isn't some kind of independent HHE, then my only other guess is some other kind of modification, and that would certainly follow along with Ro's complaint later that it takes a lot of energy to keep a hologram away from him. . . . H'mm!


	7. Seven

7) 

Their happy compatriot was already snug and asleep, and they were able to leave him just as he was, without any accidental perturbation. Zeta led Ro upstream, since he thought going downstream would only prove unwise, and did not want to remind himself or Ro of what fright had happened that afternoon. There was a flat granite rock not far from their camp, and Zeta rested there, and in gentlemanly promptness, helped an ailed Rosalie aboard. She flopped down beside him, and observed the lovely night's exclusive view. The river twinkled in the moonlight, the stars overhead winked at her, the planets bright red and blue threw out commands to the universe, and the moon was three-quarters full, lifted from the southeast, and had just crowned the top of the mountains.  
"What mountains are those, Zee?" Ro asked, to bring the tense silence to a close, and she really was curious. She wasn't exactly sure where they were.  
"It's called the Cascade Range. There's a cluster of three mountains there called Three Sisters, over three thousand meters high."  
Ro cared insignificantly for the details. The thought of sisters reminded her of a conversation last night. "Tell me that story again, the one about the Seven Sisters."  
Zeta brushed soot and leaves from beside him on the rock into the river, a faint grin on his face Ro could not see. "Later. It'll be your reward for telling me what happened this afternoon."  
Ro cupped her chin to her knees, sighing. She wound herself into a tight, tense ball.  
"It's not like you, Ro, to be careless. Something must have happened. What if it'd been Bennett or--someone else?" Zeta faced ample difficulty when Ro did not immediately open up. In fact, he sensed her resistance and anxiety multiply. What other tactic ought he try? It usually didn't take so much effort on his part to get her explain any of her actions. Most frequently, Ro volunteered information, whether Zeta needed to hear it or not. She was a verbally expressive girl: what she felt inside she said, with little regard to the consequences or who would be hurt. "Can I help you in any way, Ro?"  
Ro ran her thumb absently over a scratch on the wrist of her opposite hand. She could feel the welt of the scab, and knew there were several just like it various places on her skin, helter-skelter reminders of her mental absence that afternoon. "I am not reckless, Zeta, but you know I get klutzy sometimes. How do you know it wasn't just an accident?"  
"You would have said it was."  
Ro growled quietly. He had her on that one. She most certainly would've said it was an accident then valiantly blame herself for her own stupidity. But she hadn't, and it was too late to tell a big fib. "You know me too well."  
"I'm sorry."  
"Oh, don't apologize!" Her hand whipped through her tangled hair.  
"I'm worried about you."  
"I'm worried about myself."  
"Why?"  
"I told you."  
"That you're losing your mind? That?"  
"Yes, that!" she said with scorn.  
"Ro, you can keep talking in circles all you want, and trying to confuse me, but it won't work."  
"I know. You're one persistent robot."  
"Two years," he suddenly said, just as he was running over the memory of his conversation with Jas before supper.  
"What?" Ro observed him, her brow knitted in confusion. "I think you got water in your brain."  
"No, two years. That's how long we've been together."  
Ro nodded and set her hand to pat him on the leg. Her edginess temporarily evaporated. "I knew what you meant. Two years is a long time. Almost as long as my life on the road before you. Even longer than I was with my parents. And, thankfully, almost as far back as I can remember. Except lately."  
"Lately?" Zeta leaned back on the boulder, against his elbows, and kicked his feet out before him, then crossed his ankles. He'd grown used to his human hologram, and after so long of studying the way that people moved, he mimicked easily.   
Ro swerved to her right, to perceive Zee. He looked a little smug, so sure of himself. She wanted to retaliate and not tell him what had been occurring to upset her, what had thrown her out of herself and into a locked shell. But she knew she would tell him. What else was she to do? The last thing she needed was an argument with the only friend she had in the world. And even that was unlikely to happen. Zeta was no forceful debater, since nothing was capable of firing up any tangible passion.   
Ro squinted and licked her lips. "I've been remembering things. I've been seeing things."  
"What things?"  
"Things that creep me out. Things that make me feel small and childish all over again."  
"Like regression?" He realized as soon as he said it that he shouldn't have asked. His self-adjusted program to know everything about human nature had gotten in the way of his ability to be Ro's friend. "Sorry, I won't ask anymore questions."   
She just stared anxiously at Zee, frustrated, not at him, really, that would be pointless, but at herself. What was wrong with her?  
Zeta lifted a welcoming arm, and Ro leaned into him. She gained the necessary security to feel like herself again. Without his prying, and his assuring patience that she take all the time she need, at length Ro was able to narrate to him what had been happening, the things she'd seen, the things she thought, and exactly how much it'd been haunting her. Zeta listened carefully, storing away every word, and tried to think of the best advice, what any human would give to a girl in Ro's place.   
"This," he began, "has been going on for a week? H'mm."  
"What's the verdict, Zee? Am I really losing my mind?"  
"No, Ro, you're not. It's impossible for a human to lose their mind. It's not something in you that can be stolen or erased, like it is for me. Figuratively, however----"  
"You really do think I'm going crazy!" She flung herself hastily from him, and malicious energy poured forth.  
Zeta smiled in the face of her dramatic tumult, and he kindly set her head back to his shoulder. "No, Ro. You're obviously channeling some deeper psychological problem."  
"Obviously," she scoffed. "But what do I do about it?"  
"Right now we have to take Jas home."  
"After that?"  
"I don't know. My foresight is not so good. You can't rely on anything in this world to actually take place. What is the point of planning?"  
"You are learning to be human." Ro tucked herself closer to Zeta, refusing to think unhappy thoughts about her future. "This wasn't a very good time for me to have a nervous breakdown, was it?"  
"There is never a good time for that."  
"But, I mean, it's awfully selfish of me."  
"No, it's not. You can't help it."  
"You have your own worries, Zee. They're also my worries. I don't need to be another." She was quiet for a moment, and studied acutely Zeta's face. He stared blankly into the dark forest ahead. "What about Dr. Selig?"  
Zeta twitched at the mention of his creator's sacred name, and his arm inadvertently tightened around Ro's shoulders. "Dr. Selig is dead."  
"What if he isn't, though?"  
Miserably, Zeta looked down at her.  
"Well, stranger things have happened."  
"No, Ro. We saw his ship blow up. We saw him go under, in the water. They blew him up, Ro! My one chance . . . gone."  
Ro refused to listen to his pessimism. "But just imagine for a moment, Zee, that he isn't dead. We don't really know for sure that he is, do we? Think about it. Process that, mister."  
Zeta tried to think about it. All he could think about, though, was poor Dr. Eli Selig, and how harmless of a man he'd always seemed to be. Zeta had had great hopes that Dr. Selig would be the one to release the synthoid from doom and restore his freedom. "I don't know, Ro." But he replayed the memory of Dr. Selig's death, and found a suitable conclusion. "We never did see his body."  
"That's right. We didn't."  
"I don't know if I can do it, Ro."  
"Do what? Find the good doc again? It won't be that hard. He's sure to go back----"  
"No, I don't mean that. We could always find him before, it wouldn't be hard to find him again. I mean I don't know if I can handle it. Being so close to freedom, then letting it all slip away again. It's . . . It's, well, disappointing."  
Ro had never seen him so upset, and found his emotions an illusive oddity that mystified her. "You pick now to start acting human? Come on, Zee. I know you haven't really been the same since . . . since Nosis."  
Zee curiously stared into Ro's eyes, attempting to find the source of something he sensed within her. The big blue eyes were the only unlocked doors to see inside of Rosalie Rowen. Some people were so easily read, but not Ro. A person--or a synthoid--had to dig a little deeper to find Ro. "How do you manage it, Ro?"  
"Huh?"  
"All this energy, this optimism. Where's it come from?"  
"I don't know," she said, and tried to think of an expanded answer to satiate his need to know 'why' to everything in the world he found puzzling. "Humans are kinda built like robots, too, Zee. We come from different DNA components, different RNA, our genes are all different, like different parts and modules in synthoids, like you. We're a mix of this and that from our parents. You're a mix of this and that from metal supply companies and laboratories and the minds of great people, like Dr. Selig."  
"That isn't it." Zeta waited, thinking through DNA and the birth of a child, development of early personality, and realized that something else was in a human. "Your optimism is something that you don't get from a cell. It comes from the other parts of you."  
"You mean my--" she lifted an eyebrow, "my soul?"  
"Yes, that's it. Your soul. But where does the soul come from? And why does your soul have more optimism than other souls?"  
"It comes from somewhere inside. I don't know the exact location, but maybe in my heart. I owe a lot to optimism and my soul, that's for sure."  
"I'm losing it, whatever it is. I don't mean my soul, if I have one. What is it in you that optimism creates and keeps you going so courageously?"  
"It's faith, Zee. It's hope. You don't need a soul, or much of one, to know faith and hope."  
Zeta was somber, his voice bleak. "Then I'm losing my faith, my hope."  
Ro hugged him around his middle. He had a way of tapping directly into her thin vein of sympathy. "It's probably a good thing I'm still here. You really can make a girl feel needed."  
Zeta was grateful, aware that Ro did not give her sympathy with simple ease. He patted her hair, silent in thought. If there was something he could do to help Ro as she helped him, he wished he could think of it. What did she need that he could provide? There was nothing. "I think you should rest, Ro," Zeta said.   
"That's all I've been doing today."  
"No," he shook his head gently, "I mean a real rest."  
"Oh, you mean a convalescence type thing. I see."  
"It would be good for you."  
"Well, this chicken girl probably could stand to have her feathers straightened out." She watched as Zeta tried futilely to decipher the correlation between herself and a chicken. "Never mind, Zee. Sometimes you think about something too hard and it gets your gears smoking. I refuse to do anything about a convalescence right now. We need to get Jasper home. And there's something," she uttered languidly, "--there's something I think I need to do."  
Zeta's audio detector picked up a certain quality in her tone that gave him a warning. "What?"  
"These visions of mine have got to stop, and I think I might've discovered a way to do it."  
He knew that asking for an explanation would yield no promising result. "It isn't a coincidence, is it, that we've run into Jas. You were right about what you told him tonight; you are meant to take him home. You were meant to guide him back to his family."  
"Hey, I don't believe in predestination--or fate--whatever the kids are calling it these days. But in some way I know I was meant to be Jasper's guardian right now. Not so much for him but for me. I was that kid once. I know how he feels. I'm supposed to remember. I'm supposed to do these things. I'm supposed to--to go home."  
"But, Ro--"  
She waved her hand at him, and he shut up fast. "Don't ask me about it now. I don't know what I'm going to do. Something. You'll see." Ro flipped around, and laid her back upon the rock, her head resting above Zeta's knee. Her hands took hold of his tense arm, and she held onto it tightly. He provided the security of a parent and the tame affection of a more intimate relationship, just the things she needed then to stave off her fears. She stared up at the stars, the thick blanket of black atmosphere above. There was something so negative about the universe. Maybe it was all that space, and space is negative, the infinity of it all just going to waste. The glorious stars so brilliant but far away, somehow so mocking and narcissistic, knowing their beauty and flaunting it to a heart-weakened Ro.   
"They have a way of making a person feel insignificant, you know?"  
"Yes, they do."  
Ro closed the lids over her eyes to welcome the feeling of tiredness. Her bruises ached, her shoulder was sore, and her left ankle was tender following a twist she'd suffered while being tossed among the rapids. She wouldn't complain. Who'd been the fool who'd let an apparition lead her off a rock in the first place? But if she was asleep she'd feel no pain, and she was determined that tomorrow would be a good day, completely absent of life-threatening moments. "Tell me that bedtime story you promised, Zee."  
Zeta was quiet while Ro waited for her fairytale.  
"Zee?" she asked, and lifted her hand to poke him in the shin. "You alive?" She tugged back her hand as soon as he quickly spoke his heartfelt quandary.  
"Are you going to leave, Ro?"  
"Wha . . . what?" Ro was suddenly up and awake and staring at her friend. "Why do you have this ability to ask me the toughest questions at the most random moments?"  
Zeta had to look at every possibility as a responsibility to himself. The idea was not without some foundation, for she had said there was something she must do.  
Ro was getting uncomfortable, and decided she should explain to him in simple terms. "Do you see me, Zeta?"  
Zeta looked with shifty eyes, then glanced away behind her. Ro grabbed his chin in her fingers and made him look at her.   
"You see me?"  
He nodded.  
"This is Ro. Your Ro. This is the Ro who is not leaving her little robot friend in the middle of his very important quest. This is the Ro that has no one else to go to, and even if she did she wouldn't care." She hadn't meant to sound so condescending, only caring. With a huff, she wondered how she could ever mix censure with affection. "Me. Ro. Not. Leave. You. Zeta." She tapped his chest with a fist as she said the words in harsh staccato. "Understand?"  
When he said nothing, but she felt he did understand and was amply reassured by her demonstrative outburst, she resumed her comfortable spot beside him. The stars were still there and hadn't moved, their distance as equally foreboding to her as before, so she felt far away, immaterial, unsure of herself. Poor Zeta! she thought. What he must think of her!   
Zeta gaped into the dark forest, amid the vertical tree trunks and horizontal undergrowth, between listening to the tree frogs and the fish that came to the surface of the river to snatch an insect. He thought about time, about his last two years. Time was a funny thing, a messy thing. Time was something a mortal could not beat. He glanced at Ro, her eyes closed, her chin resting on his forearm, and her frame seemed so small in his oversized jacket. She would age, and he would not. Peculiar, the things that a robot pondered, sitting in the dark somewhere near the High Desert of Oregon. A glance he casted at the stars filled a sense of kindred in him, like he was negative space. "Ro, how do you think this is going to end?"  
Ro wanted to pretend he hadn't just asked her that. But she couldn't. There it was, out there, filling her brain with possible scenarios. All her previous happiness was corroding. She resented it, though she kept the contemptuous barb from her intonation. "I don't know, Zee. Let's not think of endings just yet. I've had enough endings in my life to suit me awhile." She tightened her hold on his arm. "Endings are terrible things, especially between friends."  
"I won't think of endings until you tell me to."  
The promise was not at all a comfort. To Ro, it actually screamed of sorrow. But at least it was something she could, for the present, ignore. "Tell me the story, Zee. I like your stories."  
He fluffed her hair with his fingers, relaxing her, so she could easily drift off into sleep. "There was a Greek titan--"  
"That's not right, Zee!" Ro rudely interrupted, dismayed at his fairytale blunder, ingenuous as it was. "A fairytale starts off with the words 'once upon a time.'"  
"That's right. I'll start over." It wasn't really a classic fairytale, only a myth, but he didn't want to disappoint her. "Close your eyes. Go to sleep."  
Ro did as she was told, even though her lashes were so heavy she could hardly keep them lifted by her own exhausted will any longer.  
"Once upon a time," Zeta began, finally finding the right introductory phrase, "there was a famous and powerful Greek titan named Atlas. With his wife Pleione, they had seven equally beautiful daughters, who their father and mother loved deeply, and who they loved in return . . . ."  
Someplace in myth, at some time, a family had been born, and a family had been happy. That was all Ro needed to hear. 


	8. Eight

8) 

Morning came early, just a bit after sunrise. If it hadn't been for the vociferous birds crackling far above that awakened Ro, it would've been Jas instead. He was loud enough to disgruntle any teenage girl who'd rather sleep than be up at the crack of dawn. She rose and wasn't surprised to find herself back at the camp, when the last thing she remembered was Zeta telling her that story about the Pleiades, lying on a rock not far from her warm, nature-made bed. Ro brushed down her hair with her hands and looked about the camp. Jas was so prepared to speak with her that as soon as he knew her eyes were open, he came near from the shore of the river, to her soft moss, fern and pine needle bed.  
"Good morning, Ro!" Jas exclaimed. He was positively dancing on his toes, so excited he was to launch the journey home. "How'd you sleep?"  
"Just fine. You?"   
"I'm doing great this morning. Just great."  
Ro recognized her responsibility toward Jas, and felt this need to be both sister and mother to him. Although she still did not like children, and treated them like everyone else, every other adult, using her snide civility, she found herself appreciating Jas. He wasn't a 'child' really, no more than she had been at thirteen. He did have a sagacity beyond his youth. She feared it would get him into further trouble along the line, if he did not curtail what could lead him out of control. As long as he chose to have a pleasant life, to use his brains to the best of his ability, he would turn out all right.   
It wasn't long before traces of their night's camp were destroyed. Ro frowned deeply when her comfortable bed was ruined. "I slept so well there," she said to Zeta, who was busy taking it apart, flinging branches and particles here and there. "I felt like--like that character from that Shakespeare play." She didn't know Shakespeare well, but had the chance once to see a film based on the play, and is from that which she gathered her Shakespearean knowledge. Zeta said she meant Tatiana, the fairy queen. "Yes," Ro agreed, "I guess that would be her." She watched her fairy bed disappear, and hoped someday, in some other forest on the other side of the country, she would have a chance to build another. When the last branch had been thrown, and the last rock from the fire pit tossed into the river, Zeta began to lead Jas and Ro from the forest in an westerly direction, the opposite direction of Glenview. They needed to head to the nearest town for transportation, he informed, and it was several miles off. Jas could hardly contain his excitement. He would run far ahead with great animation, only to stop and wait for Zeta and Ro to catch up, which goaded both synthoid and girl into walking as fast as they dared. Zeta would not walk more than five paces ahead of Ro or five behind, so he had to plan his steps in accordance to hers, and her feet were far heavier than last night. With things weighing upon her mind, it was no wonder her heart was not in the thrill of the adventure and her character that morning was severely reticent.  
Once they got to the road, leaving the woods behind, the trip picked up considerable pace. Three stragglers lingering along a wide shoulder of a road, before a field of golden soybeans, caught the notice of the first sympathetic driver. A burly man with sandy double-chin stubble and a bulbous frame let the wandering trio into the back of his truck, covered in a spray of chicken feathers and empty chicken grates. Ro groaned when she saw it, but was thankful to be off her feet. The driver was only going into Markham, a dinky and dusty town, and regretted he couldn't take them all the way to Glenview, Jas's home. Zeta inquired after a train or a bus, but the mister at the wheel said that no train had run through Markham or Glenview in twenty years, on account of the turbulent global economy or some such. And if there was no train there was no bus, since both were "controlled by the same money-seeking, mafia-run monopoly," to use the driver's exact words. Zeta was not dismayed, and optimistically told a sulking Jas that he was still sure they'd reach Glenview at least by late evening. Jas took comfort in the synthoid's promising speculation. They enjoyed the rest of the ride to Markham in silence. Ro had fun tossing out the feathers from the back of the moving vehicle, with the wind rushing wildly through the truck's bed. Those feathers that were not swept up in a whirlwind as soon as speed was gained, Ro picked up, pinched the stem and held it to the air, it quivered, like in fear, then in empathy she let the thing go. It would fly away, sometimes high up, and she would watch it compulsively until it disappeared entirely from her eyesight. By the time they stopped in front of the square brick Markham post office, the truck bed was void of every chicken feather. The driver was thanked graciously for his kindness by Zeta and by Ro. Their strange benefactor modestly said it was nothing, only a decent duty, then said again he wished he could've taken them as far as Glenview.  
"Ro," Zeta began, after he'd had a fair study of the town, "take this." He gave her some cash.   
She didn't bother to glance at it, but shoved it in her jeans pocket. "What are you going to do?"  
"Find us a way to Glenview. Take Jas and get him something to eat, there," he commanded, nodding his head in the direction of a diner a half-block north. "And get something for yourself. I will meet you there as soon as I've found us a way to Glenview."  
"Don't do anything illegal, tin man," Ro said, in a jocose manner Zeta was used to. He gave her a nod, a half-smile for a farewell, then stepped away.  
Ro and Jas walked in Zeta's opposite direction. She looked over her shoulder at him, while she waited by Jas at one of the town's few traffic lights. Zeta always had an intimidation factor increase when he was on a minor quest. A determination would form to do what needed to be done and nothing else. His single-mindedness reminded her of his synthoid brain, and that he often lacked the complexity of a human. If she were to do such a task, she'd surely get side-tracked and head into a clothing shop or bookstore. But not Zeta.  
"Come on, Ro, we got a walking signal!" Jas tugged at her hand. She awoke from the trance and they waddled across the street. The whole town was built from ancient brick buildings, early- to mid-twentieth century, and the diner had been renovated from one of these buildings, in the heart of the village. To the east of the diner was the local hardware store. To the west was a salon. Typical small-town village, Ro thought, and nothing but.   
The diner was much to Ro's liking. Hardly crowded, and the few people who were there minded their own business, didn't stare at her or Jasper as they took a booth along the front windows. The server came over to tend them, asking first for their beverages. Jas was hesitant to order, and looked at Ro pleadingly. She understood.  
"I got you covered, Jasper. This one's on me. Order whatever flesh of a dead animal you feel like."  
This tickled Jas, and he thanked her shyly. To the big-haired, big-lipped waitress, he spouted off an order for a hamburger and fries, with a large vanilla milkshake. The server turned to Ro.  
Ro stuck her cheek into her palm, looking as sardonic as she felt, and sounding it too. "Give me the biggest piece of chocolate cake you've got. Better bring a big glass of ice water with it. I'll give you a surplus tip if you put a few cherries in that water and bring me your phone book as soon as you can."  
"Phone book?" the waitress asked.  
"That's right. I know it's not edible, but I do like a little bit of an appetizer."  
With a nod and grin, the server went off behind the counter. Ro watched her a moment, as she prepared the drinks, but grew disinterested.   
"So," she started, curling her arms over the formica tabletop, "this is Markham. I can't believe I'm in a town that actually doesn't have a Ground Wire." She analyzed Jas. "Did you ever come here?"  
"No," Jas answered. "I don't leave Glenview much. I've visited relatives in other parts of the country, but not for very long. I bet you've seen a lot of places, Ro. You've probably been all over the world with Zee."  
Ro didn't answer the question. She'd seen enough of the world, but there was always a surprise in every new place she and Zee stepped foot in, except maybe Markham. The ho-hum drab town kinda gave her the creeps. "I hope, for your sake, Glenview isn't like this place."   
Jas found her ridicule of Markham amusing, but came to the defense of his hometown. "Glenview's not this small. It's small, but nothing like this. This is like something out of an old movie, isn't it?"  
"Sure is."  
"I live out in the country, anyway. We've got a great ranch out west of town."  
"Your people are ranchers?" By the sound of her question, Jas probably thought she found this unexpected. But she didn't. If people out in West Country were anything, they were farmers.   
Jas examined her, trying to size up from what part of the world she must've grown up in, since she said nothing about it when she explained her life as a runaway. "I bet you're a city girl. You only feel alive if you've got miles of concrete and car horns honking at you."  
Ro gave him a grin, then tried to laugh, but she couldn't. Laughing was too exhausting. "No, I'm not really a city girl. I'm another casualty of the suburban family-growth system."  
"Well, which do you prefer, city or country--maybe suburbia instead?"  
"I don't know what I like. The city is nice, but it has a lot of danger. It's both easy to disappear and easy for someone to find you, if they know enough of the right kind of people. I guess in the country it's the same way. You're sorta pegged with labels and subjected to outsiders' gossip no matter where you are. And you're always liable to danger."  
Their drinks were brought to them, and the phone book was plopped in front of Ro. She was disappointed that the book was only for the little dusty town of Markham, and did not offer listings for the entire county. Ro fetched a cherry from her water and popped it in her mouth as she opened the book. The town was so poor they couldn't even afford to have updated, computer-cataloged version of the phone book. It'd been Ro's youth since she'd seen anyone still using the old paper, glue and bound form.  
"What are you looking for?" Jas asked, curiously watching her.  
She glanced up at him, just lifting her eyes but not her head. "Myself." She set her cherry to the bucket she made with her tongue, and stuck it out to Jas. Her unanticipated juvenility caused him to pleat over in laughter. She smiled and went on leafing through the pages.   
The tinkling bell over the front entrance of the diner announced a new customer. Ro looked up from the black and white list of names. Zeta breezed in, glanced around, met Ro's eyes and squeezed in beside her at the booth. Immediately he examined the phone book.  
"What are you doing?"  
"Searching," she replied. "Hey, Zee, did you realize this place doesn't have a Ground Wire? All these years, I never once believed in false advertising."  
"Ground Wire? Oh," Zee nodded, "the drink place. That is funny."  
Ro smiled to cover the foolishness of attempting a joke at a time like that. "How'd it go? Any luck?"  
"Yes. I found a man at the town hall who would take us to Glenview, for a small fee."  
"How small is small?"  
"The rest of our cash," he said.   
Ro wasn't sure it was worth it. They could walk the whole way, it was feasible, instead of using the last of their cash. She didn't say as much. Zeta knew what was for the best. But she knew as well as he did that if he used his credcard, the NSA would find them again in a heart beat. If they'd used it to buy a vehicle in Markham, the town would turn ghostly and dead in a matter of a few hours, run over as it would be with NSA agents and maybe even military. Ro shuddered, and tried to focus again on the phone book. Presently, her three-tiered chocolate cake arrived and Jas's hamburger meal. The server asked Zeta what he would like, and he ordered iced tea with extra ice. Though he would never drink it, he just liked to pretend to drink it.   
Jas, between chews of his cowburger, asked Zeta when they would get to leave. When Zeta told him at three that afternoon, it didn't take Jas long to figure out that was less than ninety minutes away. It seemed to make Jas eat faster, without relish, and Zeta reminded him to chew his food, the way he'd done last night with the fish.   
Ro tossed the tiny phone book on the table. "Dang!" she interjected in frustration. "Nothing. Not a thing!" She pushed at Zee's arm, and he took the hint to stand up from the booth so she could get out, carrying the phone book with her. It flopped down on the counter of the bar, in front of the kitchen, with an angelic 'whoosh'. The server took it from her to put it away.  
"Didn't find what you were looking for, honey?" she asked harmlessly.  
"No, but I didn't really think I would." Ro sat herself down momentarily on the empty swivel stool in front of her. The waitress disappeared for a second, and Ro just wanted a moment alone to think. She knew she needed to find her family, and was always looking for hints to their whereabouts, but never so deeply as to actually look up 'Rowen' in the phone book. The waitress reappeared, with a big bowl of cheery halves. Ro glanced at the fruit's red flesh then looked at the waitress.   
She winked at the blonde-haired girl. "On the house, honey. Strangers in these parts don't often ask for cherries in their water. Who're you looking for? Maybe I can help."  
"I doubt it." Ro feasted on the cherries, one at a time, appreciating their sweetness and consistency. They were better, nearly, than chocolate cake.  
"Try me. I've been here since I was married--five years. I'm from the coast originally."  
Ro sighed, and lounged a long arm out in front of her. "Last name Rowen. Rowen with an 'e' and not an 'a'. Anyone's first name."  
"Rowen, you say? H'mm." She itched her head, between her teased brown locks. "Nope, no Rowens in Markham."   
Ro took out cash from her pocket and laid it on the counter. It was pushed back to her by well manicured nails, heavily lacquered in magenta.  
"You keep it, honey," she said, one pink nail lingering on the corner of the card, as though she might change her mind abruptly. "You look like you need it more than I do. And don't you three worry about paying that bill, either. I've taken care of it." She leaned in to the girl, in womanly confidence. "My husband runs this place. He takes care of me, and I take care of him. Nice things, husbands, when you find the right one. Of course, you can't settle. You remember that. Don't settle."   
Ro absentmindedly nodded comprehension. "Right, I got it." She pocketed the cash and stumbled her gratitude. People who were nice without a real reason threw her head into a mighty spin. What was she to think? She couldn't think without getting a touch woozy with vertigo. Nice people were unfair, and Ro felt guilty for not deserving such friendliness. Perhaps she did deserve what she got. She'd gone through a bit of tragedy herself. Maybe nice waitresses who wouldn't accept bribes or who let obviously poor stragglers eat for free was redemption to the horrors already witnessed. Maybe not.  
After a stop in the bathroom, Ro returned to Zeta in the booth, this time squeezed in beside him. Jas was nearly done with his burger, and she realized she'd hardly touched her precious and moist chocolate cake. Somehow even real chocolate food couldn't appease her unhappiness. She picked at the cake with her fork, leaning tiredly into Zee, and he knew she was feeling a bit more anguish than she let on.   
The male patron who would take them to Glenview waited by the town hall, just as they met promptly at three. The clock in the tower chimed off the hour in stentorian booms like thunder over the desert plateaus. Some brief introductions took place, and Ro gathered their new driver would be given his payment after they were safely in Glenview and not a moment before. Zeta handled everything like a keen businessman. In a minute or two, they were shuffled into the luxury car and hovered away toward Glenview.   
Jas quietly peered out the window the whole way. The corn and soybean fields that flashed by appealed to him, but soon the genetically engineered vegetables were replaced by empty fields of the High Desert, and the sight of cattle and horses pleased him more than anything. He would be home soon. The very thought sent his young heart pounding, his brow feverish and his eyes dilated. He'd been from home only a few days, but the days felt like years. When he returned he knew it would be great, just as Ro had said. He fully expected some sort of lashing and punishment by his parents eventually, but he knew they'd be as overjoyed to see him as he was sure to be seeing them. They were not strict parents, not overly cruel or domineering. But all families have their quarrels. And his had been about school, which would start again for the fall in a few days. It had been a stupid fight. Jas realized that now. And he could not wait to tell his mother and father how sorry he was. Jas glanced at Ro, sitting beside him. She was curled up to the window, trying to catch some sleep. Perhaps he had been meant to run away, so he could meet Ro, his personal guardian angel. He was smitten with her, the way any mortal would be smitten with someone like Ro, who seemed so very immortal and goddess-like. He secretly wished she and her synthoid friend Zeta would be able to stay with his family for the rest of the day, maybe even for a couple days. They'd been so important to him, saving his life and taking care of him, that he knew his parents would feel appreciation, when they found out who'd been responsible for bringing him home. He was only sorry Ro had no home to return to. But she did have a government-built infiltration unit with her, and he--he couldn't think of Zeta as an it--was like a wandering home for Ro, and she'd nearly said as much. Whatever they were running from, whatever they would encounter in the future, and wherever they went, Jas knew they'd survive to find their own destination. He had found his; he was returning home, and never wanted to leave it again.  
The driver let them off at the outskirts of town, right before the gold dirt road that led the mile or so to Jasper's family farmhouse. Zeta paid off the man, and Ro watched as the last great chunk of their precious cash was handed over to greedy human mitts, and all they had left was junk change. Even Zeta was hesitant to let it go. The car sped ahead, its electric motor purring softly as it continued its southerly direction. From the active hoverjets, some dust was kicked up, but by then the three travelers had turned their backs to the main road, stepping toward Jas's.   
The afternoon had turned cloudy, the air was heavy with the scent of coming rain. By the plateau horizon, a thick storm-blue cloud feathered to the earth, sure sign that rain was falling not far off. It was monsoon season, Jas reminded them, and rain came intermittently throughout the day.   
Again, Jas dashed ahead, full of his energy, full of his irrepressible hope. He ran so far out in front of his guardians that he became a hazy mirage.   
"Do you think we should try to catch him?" Zeta inquired. He was concerned about Jas's behavior.  
"No," Ro replied, and she tried to reassure Zeta. "He's just excited. If you had a family to run home to, you'd be doing the same exact thing. Let him go. This is his moment. You and I have no idea what that kid's feeling."  
"Don't you?"  
"No, Zee, I don't. But it's nice," she gave him a little smile, "to pretend."  
"It is nice to pretend."  
"You'll have to finish that story for me sometime, Zee. The one you were telling me last night. I fell asleep right when you began."  
"Why does it interest you so much?"  
Ro shrugged. "I don't know. Makes me think of--" she decided not to say. "You'll laugh and think I'm wicked if I say what I was about to."  
"I won't think you're wicked." He decided to verbalize his own guess. "Does it make you think of having sisters, or--a family?"  
"Yes," she said in meekness. "I like the idea of it, of being turned into a star because some lecherous god was after me. I kinda wish someone would turn us into stars, Zee, so Bennett would leave us alone."  
"Well," Zeta started, folding his arms around his back, grabbing one wrist in the other hand, "if I had the power I'd turn you into a star. And then myself. It's better than being rewired, having your memories stolen from you, and everything you've ever known erased as though it didn't matter."  
"What were their names?" Ro suddenly asked, no longer liking the idea of becoming a star, or thinking of Zeta being shredded for scrap metal.  
"Atlas's daughters?" He watched Ro nod. "I'll see if I can name all of them. Alcyone, Asterope, Celaeno, Electra, Maia, Taygeta and, lastly, Merope."  
"Which star is the brightest?"  
"Asterope, but only because it is actually two stars close together. Alcyone is the brightest single star. They are placed so that Orion's shooting his arrow at them, in his own constellation. The chase that took place in their Grecian countryside now takes place in the heavens." Zeta patted Ro around her shoulders, for she looked so confused at the involved names of the sisters.   
"Couldn't they just have simple names?" Her sarcasm was at work. "What kind of father names his kid--Merope? Ridiculous!"  
"I will tell it to you another night. Look, Jas is waving to us. We must be close."  
They discerned a plume of trees in a green field, where nearby beef cows grazed and some horses lazed, twitching tails and ears as it pleased them. Amid the arbor grove stood Jasper's family home, a stark ancestral palace at least a hundred years old. While the farm was running with the latest in technology, the house gave a hint to the antiquity of their heritable profession.  
Jasper waited for Ro and Zeta not far from the house, lingering in the dirt and pebble roadway. There were fresh buds of tears in his eyes as he observed them. "I'm going to go in now. Wait here and I'll come out as soon as I can. I know they'll want to meet you. Promise you'll wait?"  
Ro leaned into one leg and crossed her arms. "Jas, we haven't got anywhere else to go. And it's a long walk back to town, you know. We'll wait here. You run in and say hi."  
Jas lurched forward and kissed Ro on her cheek, then dashed across the lush green grass to the front door. He shouted "Mom! Dad!" as he went. Ro felt the bitterness and the sweetness of a moment so precious and strong she could hardly stand it. Then, from the walls of the old home came a joyous shout and an eruption of screams. "Jas! Jasper? Is that you?"  
Ro found a spot on the verdant carpet, under a shading oak tree. It was here she fell, laid back, closed her eyes. "Why can't it be that easy for me?" she said aloud, specifically for Zeta's ears.  
"Someday," Zee said, "it will be." 

--

Note

Markham  
Named after a Toronto suburb. It'd probably be like one of the dinky towns north of Bend, Oregon.


	9. Nine

9) 

Thunder began without warning, flashes of lightning took place in the sky, and rain pattered to the needy ground, all before Jasper returned to Zeta and Ro. They sheltered under the oak tree, having no where else to go.  
Zeta caught Ro longingly stare at the barn not far off, just on the other side of the house, in a grange area of buildings and huts. He touched her arm to stop her from getting any ideas. "We told Jas we'd wait here. And we're waiting here."  
"But I'm getting wet!"  
"Well, I'd give you an umbrella. . . ." he trailed off his words, and Ro knew what he meant to imply.  
"A little water won't melt me. I'm not made of sugar, you know."   
Ro leaned into Zeta. She was damp, a little chilled and getting more depressed. He folded the edges of his jacket over her, to keep her moderately dry. He felt on his chin the pressure as it rested on the top of Ro's hair, but not the feeling of her hair. He had faith--that was the word, faith--the storm would not last long. It was the pitiful outside edge to a more threatening storm cell. For several minutes the tempest flared, reached a pale paramount, then withered. Thunder and lightning nearly disappeared, and the rain receded to a sheen mist. Zeta watched the clouds roll and sway, the lightning flicker until, exponentially, it was just a vague, momentary brightness.   
While Ro had a view of the road toward the main street, the way they had come, Zeta had his back turned to it. So when Ro started to see a car approach through the glaze of the falling silver streaks, she warned Zeta. He flipped about and scanned.  
"Uh oh," he uttered, and looked down at Ro.  
"I don't like the sound of that 'uh oh'. What is it?" She glanced beyond his arm to see for herself what his sudden fright was all about. And she saw. "Uh oh," she said. "That's a cop car, Zee. That's a big, ugly, no good cop car." She looked up at him. "What do we do? They're too close, we can't hide anywhere."  
"I know." He scanned the car one more time, then grabbed Ro tightly. "Hold on. Don't speak."  
Ro winced as she became part of Zeta's holographic image. It was a strange feeling, like being caught up in the middle of a tornado. But, no, she was caught in the middle of a tree. It was like being inside of something truly real, but the mind is all thrown this way and that, knowing without a doubt that what is thought of is real is not at all, just an illusion. Ro held tightly to Zeta, in his synthoid form, and listened as the car stalled on the drive of Jas's home. There were voices on the porch: Jas's, Jas's parents, and the police officers'. Synthoid and girl breathed a tremendous sigh of relief; the cops were there to check on Jasper and for no other apparent reason. Jas talked in no great detail about his adventure and how far he'd gone, and that he just wanted to come back home. Luckily, the cops were too stupid to ask many questions, particularly how Jasper came to be home so fast. The car started up again, and the sound of the motor could be detected. Zeta waited until it was well in the distance before he disengaged the hologram. By then the storm had moved on. Some rumbles of thunder were off in the distance, but the rain had lessened to a steady drip-drip, a sonorous beat that fell from the leaves of trees and the openings of gutter spouts.  
Jasper was around the side yard searching for his lost company. They seemed to have vanished. "Ro? Zee?" When he ran back to the front, they were standing almost exactly where he'd left them. And he swore they weren't there less than a minute ago. Humans were often very unobservant. "I'm sorry about that," he said as he neared them and came to a halt. "I didn't know the cops were going to show up, honest. I hope it didn't scare you." He was looking at Ro as he said it, as if Ro could ever actually be scared of anything. He didn't believe it was possible. Still, if he'd examined her close enough, he would've seen the quivering of her startled eyes and the shaking of her nervous hands. But Jas could not see fault in what he thought was the epitome of human perfection.  
Zeta's reply was gentle. "We're fine. How is everything going with your parents?"  
"So far so good. I've told them about the two of you, and I begged them not to spill it to the cops. Hopefully they'll let you stay awhile. That is unless you have some where else you have to be."  
Ro loved the idea of being guests of his family, but she also didn't want to be an inconvenience. People always say that uninvited guests aren't an inconvenience, but when it's visible on their face the truth is known. "We're not in a hurry to get anywhere. Trust me."  
Jas turned back to the house, with Ro and Zeta about to follow. But his parents were coming, across the wide lawn, through the quartet of narrow oak trees. His mother was positively beaming, and her plain brown hair was pulled back into a ponytail that bobbed on her neck as she traipsed to her son. Jas's father was the rough cowboy type, but also one of those everyday sort of guys who could not be intimidating. These were farming people, simple people. But like anyone, any parent, their children meant the world to them. Jas's mother set her hands to rest on her son's sloped shoulders, emphatically pleased to be meeting his saviors.  
"Jas told me what you did, bringing him back all the way back here. I'm sure it must've taken you out of your own way. I want to thank you."   
Instead of a cordial, cool American handshake, Jas's mother hugged Ro gingerly, in that very matronly manner. Ro found herself comforted by the hug, and missed her own mother so much for just a moment she thought she would split in two. The devoted mother then thanked Zeta, also with a hug and a kiss on his cheek. Jas's father expressed his gratitude, far less emotionally than his wife, and just with shakes of the hand.   
"You're both nearly soaking," he said. "Jas shouldn't have left you out in the rain. Why don't you come inside and dry off? Another round of storms is coming in, in a bit. Is that all right with you?" he asked of his wife, just to be sure. It might be his house, and he might be the ruler of it, at least in his eye, but he knew who really ran things.   
Jas was insistent, and begged that Ro and Zeta should stay for dinner. It was still being decided and smiled over as the party made it into the house. In the foyer, just as they stepped in, sat a fat, spoiled yellow lab before one of Jas's siblings, the younger of his older sisters. Jas took his sister's hand and shoved her forward, over the tame, disinterested dog, so she may also be introduced to Ro and Zeta.   
"Ro," Jas said, "this is my sister Julie. Julie, this is Ro."  
Julie and Ro took each other's hands, staring at each other, sizing each other up like females of an equal age do. Julie had long, golden-brown hair, and she wore half of it pulled back and braided, so it trickled down her back. Her face was plain, somehow chipper, youthful, but her eyes were not so innocent. Ro leered suspiciously, especially as Julie was introduced to Zeta. Jas's parents also realized they'd neglected to mention their names, Tess and Warren Dumes, and invited Ro and Zee to address them as such. Zeta had said his name was Zee Smith, and Ro just went by Ro, and, when she wanted, she added the surname Smith.   
Zeta leaned over to pet the yellow lab, and the dog began to bark with sudden, startling animation. Zee lurched back his hand. Tess reprimanded the dog. "Boom-Boom! Don't! Be good to our guests!" The dog lounged again on the rug of the foyer, as though it was the only spot he knew, and contemptuously peered at Zee. Tess apologized profusely, rather embarrassed. "He's really such a gentle dog. I'm sure I don't know what got into him." Zeta told her that it happened to him all the time.  
They sat together in the crowded family room, littered with all sorts of objects and foreign articles and strange but pleasant smells that make a house so cozy and warm. Tess asked if either Ro and Zeta would like something to drink.  
"Water for me," Ro said. "Zee won't have anything."  
Tess looked at Zeta's navy-blue eyes. "You sure? Not even some water after that long walk?"  
"No, Mrs. Tess, I'm fine, thank you."  
Jas smothered laughter behind his hand. He was laughing both at the 'Mrs. Tess' remark and his mother unknowingly offering a drink to a robot.   
Julie began asking a question, just as her mother rose for the drinks. "So, where are you two from?"  
"Um," Ro started, and possessively touched Zeta's arm, "Zee's from Gotham. I'm from Spring City. We're cousins, but we didn't grow up together, hardly saw each other, really. Nasty family quarrel, you know how it is." Ro clenched her teeth and smiled as brightly as she could. Good lies, Ro, she thought to herself. She always had a story at hand for emergencies.  
"Cousins, huh?" Julie smiled back at Ro. As she leaned on her elbows, it more in the direction of Zee, as if trying to get him to answer. "What in the world are you two doing all the way out in West Country, in the High Desert? To be in this place from Gotham City! Imagine! What a hole this is to end up in."  
Zeta blinked, and his speedy processor attempted to formulate a lie that was both believable and followed along with Ro's story. "It's something we Smiths try to do once a year. It was our turn this year. We trace the paths our ancestors took when they left Gotham for parts unknown centuries ago. We can trace our ancestors all the way back to the mid-nineteenth century."  
Warren Dumes was greatly interested in this. For a while, a good five minutes after Tess brought Ro the water, Zeta and Warren carried on a conversation about different parts of West Country. Ro was horrified but surprised at Zeta's abundant batch of lies. Suppose someone was to find out they had no relatives in West Country? Why leave it at that? What if someone found out they had no relatives, period? Ro grew uncomfortable and tried her best not to let it show. She hid behind her water glass and tapped her foot nervously upon the floor.   
Another storm flew in by the time dinner was to be set on the table. It was easy for the Dumes' to say the "cousins" could stay, at least for a little while longer. Ro was looking forward to a home-cooked farm meal. Zeta, however, was not. He remained worried about Ro, in his own way, since she still did not seem to be acting much like herself. She was as callous and cool as ever, but what was apparent to Zeta was a greater sadness, no doubt procured by a deep lack. He excused himself early from the dinner table, after not touching his meal. It left Jas's parents wondering over the eating habits of the curious Zee Smith. Ro made an excuse for him with a mouthful of buttery biscuit. "He had a big lunch," she said.  
Zeta wandered around the family room, and eventually found his way into a study in the back of the house. The room was dark, no lamps lighted. The windows facing to the south were no help, as it had grown beastly dark outside, the sky thick with heavy, falling clouds. Zeta scanned the den's built-in bookcase, finding titles of classics familiar to his encyclopedic brain. There was a book of Greek mythology he glanced over. The story of the Pleiades was beginning to stir him, as it was Ro's interest that made him so aware of the myth. He frowned when he read Merope's life, one of the Seven Sisters. Then smiled to himself, as one always does amid a touch of fateful irony. He replaced the book where he found it, and discovered another familiar title he examined. He shut the book and turned, just in time to see the shadow of someone appear in the doorway. He scanned, detected shape and audio, and knew it was Julie Dumes, the teenage sister of Jas.   
"How can you see what you're doing, Zee Smith?" Julie asked, and flipped on the blaring light overhead. The room was illumined by an ancient chandelier, crystal drops tinkling, as though touched by some old ghost's caress.  
"I wasn't really paying much attention," Zeta responded after a delayed moment. He carried the book he'd chosen over to the desk in the corner, a wide mahogany piece of furniture covered in a smattering of gray dust. "Do you have any paper and a pen?"  
"Sure," Julie said, and rummaged through the drawers of the desk to find the articles he'd summoned. She placed them out for him nicely. "Your cousin is in the bath. Mother wanted me to ask if you'd like to use it after her."  
"No, thank you," was his reply. He sat himself down in a comfortable chair that squished as he fell into it.  
"I didn't think so. I told her that you smelled fine the way you are." Julie was hardly self-conscious, not even when Zeta looked up at her with an intense expression. "She asked me how I knew that, and I said I got close enough to you so that I could smell you, if all I did was inhale a little. Like this." Julie set herself on the edge of the desk, set her palms flat on the top and leaned over to Zee, just near his jaw. She inhaled deeply, like life would never end, then breathed out upon him. When she tilted back, she was smiling warmly. "Very nice smell. Reminds me of something." Julie tapped a finger to her lip, thinking. "I know!" She touched his shoulder after flinging her long locks. "Like the computer lab at school. Like electronics. Like overheated vidphones and new plastic keyboards. Perhaps you're a scientist who spends too much time involved in his work."  
Zeta gave her a pleasant grin, really with little clue what was wrong with the girl. He couldn't understand, without going into a psychological debate with himself, why more young girls didn't show the sense they obviously had. Perhaps that's what he liked about Ro. She was wise far beyond her mere seventeen years, thanks to the life she'd led. She showed none of the shallow values to which most teens adhered. "A scientist? You could say that." He turned to his book, facing a poem that he wanted to copy, and picked up the pen.  
"What are you reading, anyway?"  
"Byron," Zeta said.  
"Oh, good old George Gordon!"  
"You know Byron?"  
"Everyone knows Byron." Again, she leaned toward him. "I'm not as stupid and innocent as I look."  
"That's too bad."  
Julie launched herself off the desk and meandered lifelessly about the room she knew so well. "How old is your cousin, anyway?"  
"She's seventeen."  
"Oh, is she in college?"  
"Not at the present time."  
"Are you? Are you in college? Maybe you're a teacher."  
"No. I have enough knowledge to last me a while." He'd said it to be ironic, but Julie could not appreciate the irony. Only Ro would, but Ro was not there.   
"My older brother and sister are at school now--the state school. I plan to go out east when my time comes."  
Jas entered the room then, and was immediately on guard once he spotted his sister there. "Julie, Mom wants to see you. You forgot to help clear the table."  
"I know, but I didn't forget." Julie headed for the door, but turned around for a lingering look at Zee. She whispered to her brother. "You should run away more if you're going to bring men like that home with you."  
"Julie!" Jas, embarrassed, shoved his older sister away at the shoulder. "You don't know what you're talking about. At some point you'll probably wish you hadn't said that."  
Julie shrugged, a mysterious, playful glint in her eye. "We'll see." She left the room and headed for the kitchen. Jas met with Zeta at the desk, where the synthoid was copying something out of a book in meticulous rhythm.  
"Be careful with Julie, Zee," Jas warned, his tone warm, nearly at the edge of laughter.  
Zeta looked up momentarily from his work. "What do you mean? Is she in danger?"  
Jas just lifted his eyebrows. He should've known a synthoid would be so innocent. "It's a good thing you're not human. That's all I've got to say. What are you doing?"  
"I'm copying Byron." Zeta held his forehead in the palm of his hand, while his other wrote out the words of the classic poem to a piece of white lined paper. His handwriting was messy but legible, and Ro's was worse. It'd taken him a long moment to figure out how to hold a pen, and another to tap into his visual printing guide to the American language. But he could mimic, and mimicking was all that he was doing. He already knew what the poem said, what the words meant, and, more poignantly, of what time the poem was a reminder.  
"What for?"  
"For Ro."  
"Did she ask for it?"  
"No. Ro doesn't ask for much."  
The sound of the pen scratching went on, even after Jasper left the quiet synthoid to the book. 

--

Note

Boom-Boom  
Named after the X-men: Evolution character, Tabitha "Boom-Boom".

"Zee's from Gotham, I'm from Spring City."  
Gotham . . . come on. . . you know what that is, and I won't insult your intelligence.  
Spring City. Mentioned commonly in TZP episodes. The show's creators might've pegged it to be National City, which is outside San Diego. Too prosaic for me! So I made it synonymous with Baltimore. Barry Levinson would be proud.


	10. Ten

10) 

Julie did everything she could to be around Zee and Ro. And while she was helping her mother finish chores in the kitchen, she even spewed off a convincing speech about how she thought her brother's heroes deserved to stay the night. The soliloquy won over Tess's heart effortlessly, and Warren soon joined in. Once Ro was out of the bath, where she'd spent a good half-hour soaking, and back downstairs, Jas gave her the good news. Ro was enormously pleased. After that hot bath, she was relaxed and sleepy, ready for bed. The weather had not turned inviting. The rain came down in globs, there was still the occasional burst of thunder and splash of lightning. Ro was happier still that she did not have to venture out again into such loathsome weather conditions. She was glad for a fine, hospitable roof on such a night.  
Julie noticed Ro was wearing the same outfit as before, muddy blue jeans and faded black shirt. She took the teen's bare arm and wrapped it around her own. "Good heavens, don't you have anything else to wear?"  
"I pack light."  
"You must pack _really_ light," Julie teased, and tugged Ro forward to ascend the staircase. "You can borrow something of mine. We're about the same size."  
"That's nice of you, but I don't think I'll be able to give it back. Once clothes are on me, they tend to stick for a while."  
"Don't worry about it." Julie turned on the light to her pink and white bedroom, a wide corner room with two large windows, a canopy bed, dresser, wardrobe, bookshelf and hexagon fish tank, in which were swirling blue neons. Julie went to the wardrobe and started thumbing through clothes to find appropriate stuff she no longer wished to keep. "I've been meaning to get rid of so much of this for just ages. How long have you been traveling?"  
Ro's eyes danced as she tried desperately to think of a good answer. "A few months. I've lost track. One day just bleeds right into the other." She grinned hopelessly and lifted her shoulders. She thought of it then: two years, and wondered where all the time had gone. The beginning seemed so far away, while at other times she could remember it like she could remember yesterday. "After a while it's hard to tell the sunsets from the sunrises."  
"And how is it that you travel so light?"  
"Sometimes I have a backpack, but more often I just lose it."  
Julie examined Ro closely for a moment, seeing odd marks about her skin and clothes she hadn't noticed before. "What's happened to you?"  
"What?" Ro grew paranoid, unaware of Julie's observance.  
Julie pointed to Ro's arm. "You've got a few scratches."  
"I had a little accident. Some trees and I didn't get along. Then we taunted the river. The river seemed to win."  
"Your jeans have holes in them, and your shirt's in total disrepair." Julie prodded at one of the shreds in Ro's pale blue jeans, then examined equally the rip in the side of the black shirt. "That won't do. I can mend it for you, but it won't last."  
"That's all right. If I can get another year out of these, that'd be fine with me."  
"In the meantime, you can take any of these that you like." Julie lifted a pile of clothes on the bed beside Ro.  
Ro gave her thanks warm-heartedly, unsure of all the generosity that seemed to be taking place in her sour little world. Julie left Ro to change, and said she'd have a root beer float ready downstairs when she was done. Ro sifted through the clothes, the bargain shopper in her facilitated, and she grew excited. A lot of Julie's stuff was trendy, fluffy garb in bright colors Ro would never wear. But she did manage to find a hip red shirt and a pair of black jeans she appreciated. Over it she threw a long brocade jacket with square, classic lines, also in black. She examined her clean reflection in the mirror, and felt comfortable in the borrowed fashions. Julie Dumes had impeccable fashion sense.  
Downstairs, Zeta was chattering to Jas and his parents about complex computer systems and the future of androids, if the government saw fit to have them outlawed. Zeta insisted it would never happen, and an absolute ban would never gain world-wide acceptance.   
"The only place," Zeta said, "that will be allowed to run and maintain and manufacture androids in the future are government facilities. Androids being a presence in a private home will become a thing of the past, when it's hardly been a thing of the future."   
Ro didn't catch any reply. Of course Zeta would believe that androids would always have a purpose in the world, and Ro believed that, too. She wandered through the family room, unnoticed by Jas and only glanced at by Zeta. He did a double-take when he realized she'd changed her outfit and made a note of it. Dark pants, possibly a red shirt. Ro found Julie in the kitchen, preparing those promised root beer and vanilla ice cream treats.  
As soon as Julie looked at Ro, she nodded her esteemed approval at the new clothes. "Much better. And a good choice, too. You have excellent taste. That's a deCarlo jacket. He does fine work. I had it sent to me from the deCarlo store in Los Angeles Island." Julie spoke again, as if she couldn't wait for any reaction from Ro. "Your cousin is awfully strange, Ro Smith."  
Ro smiled at the name. "Yeah, he's a bit on the tipsy side, isn't he?"  
"Well, he refused dinner and he won't have dessert."  
"He's got a very, very small sweet tooth." Ro pinched her thumb and forefinger together, squinting. "Very small. Only comes out once in a blue moon. And his metabolism's slow, so he can only eat once a day. Doctor's orders."  
"I see." Julie handed Ro a float, all foamy, tan, the tall dessert-style glass freezing cold, just the way it ought to be. This Julie puzzled Ro enormously. She was an intellectual but also had great fashion sense. The two were uncommon attributes in a single person. And, in some unknown manner, Julie reminded Ro of Tiffany Morgan, but luckily not in an irksome way. "If you'd like any extra whipped cream, it's in the fridge. I think I'll take this out to Jas. It's so good to have him home." Julie touched Ro's hand as she left the room. Ro lingered and looked at her dessert. Whipped cream would be extra nice. Even if Zeta had no sweet tooth, Ro certainly did.   
It was while she was flipping down the dollop atop the ice cream that Ro felt that strange sort of panic she had felt before, most recently before the instance with seeing--imagining--her mother. To her dismay, against her orders, her hand began to shake. The spoon clattered into the metal sink, and Ro felt the inclination to look up to the window. A lightning flash illuminated the farm's grounds for a brief moment, just long enough to see someone standing out in the muddy paddock. It was a man, in middle-age, who wore an outfit that didn't belong to someone who worked a farm: business slacks, shirt, loosened tie with the tip flittering in the angry wind. At first Ro believed it was Warren Dumes, but then realized with horror the man in the field was staring straight at her, from far across the lawn and into the latticed kitchen window. He was too familiar, achingly so. Ro was frightened into action. There was a door that led from the kitchen into a square laundry room, and from the laundry room she found a door, locked, that led outside. She fumbled with inadequate, quivering fingers to undo the bolt. Once it snapped back, she hastily pulled open the door, nearly taking it from the hinges. After passing the screen door, which slammed shut raucously behind her, she was out amid the mud of the lawn, slopping through the wet to reach the apparition behind the paddock fence. The man seemed the glow with a radiance, a green-blue sea foam radiance. The closer she got the more he glowed, and the closer she got the more she knew who it was. The rain trickled upon her head, fell down her forehead, her cheeks, to her chin where it dripped or was blown away. She was aware of how cool the air had turned since sundown, how damp she was getting, but didn't seem to feel the affects. There was no other thought in her head but the man in the suit. At first, as she drew closer, he only stared, with a slight smile lifting his lips. Then, suddenly, he turned his back on her and broke out in a canter, like a mustang, and headed deeper into the range, past the barn, past the calf stall and the hen house. Ro climbed over the fence in stealthy hastiness, in earnest to catch him. "Wait! Wait!" she called out, passing the barn, the empty calf stall, seeing the figure glowing, darting further into the field. "Why won't you wait for me?" Ro ran on, hardly watching where her feet took her, past the hay mound and past the equipment shed, until she was at the edge of the civilized grange, and all that stretched out before her was a brown hilly field. The figure tipped down into a glen, over a hill away. She stopped at the half-way point of the decline, unable to move another step. Ro couldn't understand why her eyes were misty and she could not see, but then remembered she was crying, and it wasn't the rain falling in her eyes after all. "Wait!" she called again. The figure of the man finally halted and faced her.   
"Rosalie," he called in a parental voice, as though tucking his daughter into bed from afar.  
"Dad?" She was afraid to ask, more for the answer of an affirmative than a negative.   
Pierce Rowen, or the ghost of him, began to retrace his steps into the glen, and finally up the hill. Ro watched him the whole way, anxious, scared, shivering.  
He stood before her, glowing in an eerie light. His eyes were dimmed and near black, without the white cornea. "I knew I would find you again someday, _mo stoir_, if I just looked hard enough."  
"Dad, are you real? Or am I just imagining you?"  
The head of the figure shook a little, and a small, sly smile appeared. In it was a touch of Ro's own snide manner. "What's the difference, Rosalie? There is no difference. Whether I am imagined or real, would it matter, since I'm standing before you now?"  
Ro wanted to reach out her hands to his hands, just to be sure he was real. But she didn't dare, since she was sure disappointment over the failure to connect would be too much to handle. "But--aren't you--?"  
"We're at home. We're at home waiting for you, Lola and I. When will you come to us, Rosalie? We miss you."  
"I miss you, too." And, just like she had with her mother, Ro began to feel her energy draw back, away from her father, from the comfort he could give her, that he could've given. "Oh, Dad," she started to speak, her eyes tear-active again, "I can't go with you now. I just can't."  
Pierce Rowen looked so hurt, so dismayed and confused. The glow around him dimmed, then flickered, until it finally ceased. He was just a shadow then, gray and blue, translucent. "We've tried to so hard . . . to . . . and we couldn't. . . . . Why, Ro? Why?"  
"I can't seem to remember," she said, her mind going blank as she gaped at the beautiful image of her handsome, strong father. "It's something, but I just can't remember." Ro swallowed, no longer noticing the rain or how wet her clothes were, how clammy her skin felt. She was really no longer Rosalie Rowen, she was something else, but didn't know what or how it mattered. "If I went with you now, where would we go?"  
"Take my arm and find out," he said, extending his elbow as an escort.  
Ro hesitated, a nagging feeling that was far too real beginning to surface.  
"We could go to the moon tonight, and we can be back tomorrow," her father suggested.  
"The moon?" Ro repeated, critical of such an idea.  
"The moon, or the stars, some distant planet. Wherever you'd like to go. Nothing's too good for my little Rosalie. Absolutely nothing."  
"The stars? Do you mean it?" This idea excited her, and she couldn't figure out why, except that stars seemed so beautiful, so far away from the pain she found on the earth.   
"Of course I mean it. Do you remember when you were a little girl, and you used to lay out at night under the stars, watching them fall and move across the sky, as the earth moved? Do you remember your wonderment in everything? You've forgotten, I know, but you'll remember again."   
Ro didn't remember, not at first, because her childhood, anything that had happened before she was seven, seemed like just evaporated dreams; it was too hard to distinguish what had been real from what had almost been real. But the time Pierce Rowen mentioned was far beyond the time of his death, things that he would not know, unless it was some keen insight reserved especially for the immortal soul, like he'd been watching over her from a distant place. Ro could remember her foster homes, her orphanages, and how she'd always stayed out so late, just late enough past sunset to watch the stars as they formed, first faintly, the first three, then watching them bud like flowers on the eastern sphere. The display of astronomical delights filled her with a since of the important, and, at the same time, the vastness of the world frightened her, but she loved that feeling of fright. Ro wiped the tears from her eyes, scornful at the memories for making her cry. How had she forgotten so much? She used to love everything boldly and unquestioningly, yet she'd forgotten how good that love had felt.   
How had she ever been Ro Rowen after growing up?   
Ro fell into the abyss of unreality, throwing herself into the appearance of her father, and plainly seeing him before her, as though he was the only thing real around her.  
Pierce Rowen tried to get her to take the elbow again, but still she would not. Now she appeared disturbed, her eye with a dark gleam in it, an ardent concentration forming.  
"The Pleiades," she suddenly uttered, hissing out the hard 's' at the end, and to her it sounded vaguely like a 'z'. The look she gave her father was like a child pleading for a pony. "Will you take me to the Pleiades? I want to dance with the Seven Sisters. Maia, Electre, Merope---!"  
"You live in a dream world, _mo stoir_," her father said, no longer offering her his arm. He was cold and brusque. "I never would've thought I'd lost you. All these years, I never wanted to believe you would never return to us, to your family. But we're losing you, Rosalie. You're stepping away from us."  
"No!" Ro shouted, all the hurt and rage banked within her leapt to new hot flames. "I never wanted to leave you! That's not fair! Dad! You were the one! The one who went away!" Ro's mortification deepened as the apparition of her precious father began to dissolve into a fair mist before her eyes. "Don't leave me! You're always leaving me!"   
Finally, his features blurred into the night, and all that were left were his coal-colored eyes.  
"Dad, don't! Come back!" Ro reached out both arms to encircle the mist that remained, but it evaporated into nothing but the rain. Exhausted, uncertain and her legs weak, Ro fell to the muddy earth, and laid back to feel the rain upon her face, like gentle kisses of nature. "Why?" she asked to the sky, and she saw a part in the clouds over her head. The stars peeked through. She was an orphan again. "Why do they always go away and leave me?" 

--

Notes

Pierce and Lola Rowen  
Ah, yes . . . Ro's invisible parents turn visible. And these were the names that I bestowed upon them.

Mo stoir  
Irish. "My treasure." I believed it's pronounced _mah steuy(r)_.


	11. Eleven

11) 

The screen door was heard shutting faintly, a noise so common it wouldn't have bothered any of the Dumes' but for their new guests. Julie looked at her parents in a peculiar, thoughtful manner and said Ro was still in the kitchen. Before any of them knew what was happening, Zeta promptly stomped his way to the back of the house, to have a look for himself. Julie went with him, followed by Jas, then Tess and Warren. They backed away from Zeta, who stood stark and ominous in the kitchen, lost in the general scan he took of the room. The articles on the disarrayed counter, the root beer float, the spoon in the sink, the left out whipped cream container, all nudged him to believe Ro had left abruptly. He followed in her footsteps, through the laundry room and out the back door.  
"Ro!" he called as soon as he stood out of doors, accompanied by the rain and occasional faint flicker of lightning. He expected an answer, but never got one. He called a second time, heading toward the barn. It was when there was still no answer that he worried.   
The Dumes' prepared themselves for a search in the rain, armed with umbrellas, hats and jackets. They paraded around the house looking for signs of Ro. Jas wanted to run off in Zeta's direction toward the barn, but his father made him take the northern side of the house instead. It would be better, Jas was told, if they searched separately in different areas. Jas complied grumpily.   
Zeta searched for signs of Ro's prints in the mud of the paddock. He found one, ever so slight, and the human eye surely would have missed it. After tipping over the fence, into the real slosh of the farmstead, Zeta was able to track Ro's footprints with ease, deeply imprinted as they were in the malleable dirt. The chase to find Ro quickened, once he knew what impressions he was looking for, and Ro's steps had been in rather a straight line, but for a sudden jerk to the left here and there. Once he passed the grange shed, he stopped at the top of the hill, to gaze into the fields displayed before him. He called out for Ro again, then turned silent, his audio locator working to detect the slightest hint of noise, of anything familiar that may be Ro's voice. When "Audio Source Recognized" flashed through his on-screen display, he was relieved, and followed in the general direction of the weak source. The signal grew stronger as he neared. Finally, just over the next slope, he found her lying stilly, a contradictory figure in the field of sage grass, manure and mud.  
"Ro!" he said, but she took no notice of his presence, only stared off into the space above. He stole a quick glance at the sky, just to see for himself what she regarded so intently. There was nothing there, only rain, but for one small clearing between two cumulonimbus clouds, where some stars were faint and barely discernable. Zeta knelt beside the girl and pulled her into his hold. Her neck and legs nearly melted over his arms, and he had to be careful on the way back to the house. Ro was lost in the culmination of a crippling madness. He was trying to detect what faint song she was singing to herself. "Audio Confirmed," the display told him. "Song: Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star." Zeta smiled for her, unaware the song was synonymous with childhood; he thought merely of Ro's growing interest in the stars.  
Jas noticed the synthoid returning with Ro, and he was having déjà vu to the experience at the river yesterday. He made himself wholly useful by opening the door to the kitchen, allowing Zee to pass through carefully, without bumping Ro's feet or head into walls. Jas ran out to fetch his sister and his parents. Zeta was uncertain exactly what to do with Ro now that he got her back under a roof. He hesitated to put her on the couch, afraid the Dumes' may dislike a dirty and wet girl lying upon it.  
Ro had fallen asleep or fainted into unconscious oblivion. Zeta tried futilely to revive her.  
The Dumes' rushed inside, Julie among them. She insisted that Ro be taken to her room, "slag how dirty she is," the girl passionately added. Zeta did as he was told, without even thinking about it, and left Ro on the bed.   
Tess began to examine the comatose invalid, to check for broken bones. Zeta already knew what was Mrs. Dumes's desire to know. "She has nothing broken, but she must be changed and kept warm." He looked at Julie. "Can you tend to her?"  
"Of course," Julie said tenderly. "Mother, draw a warm bath, will you?"  
Zeta let himself out of the room, knowing he'd done everything he could and only desired to be out of the way. He passed Warren and Jas. Warren came up beside the sullen Mr. Smith at the top of the stairs, just as Zee descended. "What you need is a stiff drink," Warren said. Zeta attempted an appreciating smile, but it was weak and imperceptible. "Thank you, but no," he responded, as he and Warren alighted downstairs. Warren led him into the study, where Zeta recognized the bookcase and all the titles he'd noticed after supper. Warren poured himself a liqueur, and again offered something to Zeta, who again declined.  
"Don't worry," Warren said, then took a sip of the alcohol, "she'll be all right. How did you find her so fast, anyway?"  
Zeta was running his fingers across the bindings of the books, only pretending what their canvas and paper edges felt like. He looked acutely at Warren. "I know Ro very well."  
"Wonder what made her go out there in the first place?"  
Zeta didn't have an answer, so said nothing. "I like your library, Mr. Dumes."  
"Thank you," Warren responded warmly, sincerely pleased. "Most of it has been here since the house was built. A man of your--uh--interests would probably appreciate that."  
"I appreciate a lot of things, Mr. Dumes." Zeta tried to find a way to pass the time normally, while waiting for word from upstairs that Ro wanted to see him. And she would want to see him. For some reason he didn't doubt it. Something had happened to her outside in the field, and he wanted to know what. He grabbed a book off the shelf as a means to pass time and embellish a skill humans took for granted, namely reading. Books were nice for him, but Zeta preferred the electronic device called a Reader. It suited his mind more a keener accuracy than words printed on paper. But, without a Reader around, Zeta made good use of the library. Warren left him alone in the study with the door shutting behind him. He said a mild "good night" as he did, so Zeta assumed the Dumes elders would be asleep before long. Since Zeta had no good judge of time, he had no idea what hour it was, but gathered it must have been rather late. The moment he wanted it, he could display his internal clock, but didn't bother with the useless task. Time was unimportant to him. Rather without knowing why, he took out from the inside pocket of his jacket the folded up piece of paper he had written only hours ago. Once he unfurled the pages, he read the brief poem again, then returned it deep to the safe haven.   
It was a little while later that Jas and Julie entered, and the lazy dog Boom-Boom was at the wake of their heels. The dog, noticing Zeta's presence, gave the obligatory growl, but he was too tired to care. At first Zeta saw only the siblings approach, and he felt like his summons to see Ro had finally arrived. But it was Ro herself who came in through the door a moment later, behind the slow-moving Labrador. She stopped in the doorway and saw Zee rise to his feet at her entrance. She ran up to him and held him close, and he petted her on the top of her head.  
"Thank you, Zee," she said into his shirt.  
Her thank you was his best reward. "Are you all right, Ro?"  
"I'm better." She was fine again. Clean, washed, for the second time that night, wearing fresh clothes while her muddy ones were tossed into the laundry by a helpful Julie, who did not want to see any Montgomery deCarlo design go to ruin from caked and dried dirt. And although Ro was as right as the stars in the sky, she was not yet ready to let go of Zeta. The run-in with the apparition of her father just opened the gaping wound in her heart, the particular hole was the one that desired affection and unconditional love of the parental sort. Zeta was the only one she'd ever known who could provide her with anything resembling love.  
"I was thinking," Zee said to Ro, "about how things are so different now. Usually you're the one getting me out of trouble. Now I'm getting you out of trouble." Ro just squeezed him tighter, the smile of a pleased little girl on her face, the lost little girl Ro might've been once.  
Julie closed the door of the study, almost with a slam. The three in her company looked over at her, startled by the sudden cacophony. "I have a question," she stated, in a demanding tone laced with juicy breath. "You two aren't really cousins, are you?"  
Ro's voice cracked in her throat as she tried to answer, but she coward back. She flopped into a conveniently placed recliner and set her forehead to her fingertips. People's questions were often wearisome to Ro. It'd be far more agreeable if the world knew everything to start with, though impossible, it'd be less irritating.  
"No," Zeta said to Julie. "Ro and I are friends, not cousins. That was just something she said. She thought it would be easier to believe."  
Julie put her hands on her hips for a moment, then crossed her arms. She stuck out her chin to show her determination. "So what would be difficult to believe?"  
Ro groaned. "The truth, of course. Zeta is a synthoid robot built by the government and wanted by the NSA, the same people who built him, for a crime he didn't commit."  
Julie burst out in a mad laughter, hidden partially behind her hand. Jas watched on, stunned. He'd only known part of the truth, but had no idea the truth was so enormous and intriguing. "Wow," he said, suddenly in awe of Zeta in addition to Ro. "The NSA?" he asked. "The National Security Agency?" Ro lifted her eyebrows, somehow giving confirmation to Jas without a word. Julie, for a long moment, couldn't stop laughing. Jas shook her at the shoulder to rouse her sensibility, and finally she calmed down.   
"This isn't true, Jas!" she exclaimed to her brother, a hand at her stomach where it ached from over-laughing. "This little tart of a girl is pulling one over on you."  
Ro resented being called 'a tart'. "Zeta, do you mind a demonstration?"  
"Not at all." Zeta turned off his hologram capability and appeared before Julie in his synthoid shape. Julie gaped at him, her mouth slacked, her eyes wide.   
It was wonderful for Ro to see someone eat their own words. "Am I still a tart?" she asked in perfect but fake sweetness.   
Julie Dumes paid no attention to Ro. She was drawn instead to Zeta, to whom she stepped and stood before. She poked at him with a finger, and Zeta swayed from the touch. Julie flicked her hair over her shoulder, out of the way, and crossed her arms. "H'mm," she hummed. "Most interesting. A synthoid, huh? They're not supposed to exist."  
"We shouldn't have told you," Zeta said to her. He didn't care for the speculating look in Julie's eyes. He could see something at work in her. As she was leaning toward him for a closer inspection, he suddenly transformed into his human shape again, back to Zee Smith.   
Julie backed off a couple of steps. "No," she told him calmly, "I'm not going to turn you in. You saved my brother's life." Julie glanced at Ro under thick eyelashes. "You're not a tart. Honest. You're both obviously wonderful, caring--uh--people."  
"Could you tell that to the NSA?" Ro did have the hardest time suppressing a sarcastic question, especially when it came so easily, as though expected.   
Jas asked Ro if they really didn't do what the NSA suspected they did.  
"Ro," Zeta began, "didn't do anything."  
"Yeah," Ro added, "I came in later. And I really did what they thought I did. It's about the only thing they've been smart enough to get right so far."  
Zeta observed her, but she couldn't fathom any meaning in that look. She thought, at first, he might disagree with something she'd said.  
Julie sunk into the study's worn couch. She looked between Ro and Zeta, as if trying to find some answer to a question she hadn't yet asked. When she finally did, it was aimed directly toward Zeta. "How do you feel, Zee? What do you feel? I've never met a robot before. I want to know. Like any--any _human_--I'm curious about how the others live."  
"'The others,'" Ro said, with an unintended chuckle. "They're not another species."  
Julie was smarted, but stood by her question. She watched Zee in anticipation.  
"Well, I have the basic human senses built in, but each one is severely different than what a normal human has, particularly touch and smell and taste. But I have essentially better eyesight and hearing than any human."  
Jas was unable to tear his eyes away. It was the dream of any child of the mid-twenty-first century to meet a synthoid, the world's newest mythological creature. "Fascinating." Jas poked Zeta in the upper arm. "Can you feel that?"  
Zeta shook his head. "Not much. I only have a very general sense of touch. Weight, for instance. I know what is solid, what is liquid, what is soft, what is flexible. But I know no difference in fine texture."  
The Dumes children's curiosity of Zee Smith was amplified. Both had their own idea of what they found interesting about their robot house guest. Jas was interested in the technical side, Julie in the brain. And Julie was not as shy as her brother. It was she who prompted the most talk from Zeta, and how they ended up in an analytical, late-night conversation.  
"What about--" Julie began, then hesitated, a little blush coming into her cheeks, "--emotions? That is what I meant when I asked what you feel. What _do_ you feel?"  
"I feel enough," Zeta replied.  
Julie would not let the laconic response be satisfactory. She goaded him further. "Do you love? Do you hate? Do you get angry? Do you get sad?"  
"Sometimes," he said.  
"'Sometimes' to which?"  
"To all. Sometimes I feel love, hate, anger, sadness. I didn't at first," he said. "But it started to grow."  
Ro glanced at Zeta, as this hadn't been something she was aware of, but had only contemplated in her abundant moments of free time. She, however, remained quiet.  
Zeta added a nod, as though trying to agree with himself. "I'm much more aware than I used to be."  
"How interesting," Julie said. "So you feel compassion, then?"  
"Compassion, yes. I can feel compassion. Sympathy. Sympathy only sometimes. Understanding is more frequent. It is easy to understand an occurrence or a happening, whether it is to me or someone else, when all your brain has is facts, and speculation is less easy to know. To speculate I have to plan. I suppose that is no different than a human, is it? You must gather what information you can about something, and then form an opinion, an idea, then you have your speculation. But that is all conjecture. It is not fact. Believing in things that are not straight facts is one of the things that makes people wondrously human. This is what I work to control inside of me. Robots are built to believe only in facts, and adhere to nothing else. It is conjecture and guesswork that can make us human."  
"And with the conjecture comes the compassion."  
"Yes. Feelings have no fact, have they? Feelings are only subjective, never objective. That is why it is important for me to speculate: it is how I learn to feel."  
Ro was growing confused, but she was tired and it was well after midnight. Still, she found the topic of conversation more intriguing than she could admit. She'd never been one to delve into deep philosophy before, yet she found she was enjoying the notions presented. Zeta and her never talked much about such ideas, since any discussion of them before had made Ro uncomfortable. But not tonight. Perhaps she was learning that Zeta wanted to learn; he had curiosity toward emotions, and that was a curiosity not dealt with quickly. Ro even supposed she wanted to learn about love and affection, souls and a life of harmony. Why hadn't she realized it before? She was lost momentarily in fierce jealousy focused at Julie, for she had been the one to bring up the intense topic.   
Julie was thinking about Zeta's attention to Ro, when they had hugged earlier, and how, with such effortlessness, Zeta gave his love. "What about affection? Every human needs affection. What do you need?"  
Zeta was quiet for a long, thoughtful moment, beguiled, searching for an answer. Ro was uncomfortable for Zeta's sake, and she wanted to say something so he wouldn't be forced to reply, and even Julie was about to retract the complicated question when he finally found what he'd been looking for.   
"Being without affection would--would frighten me. Does that make me human? No. There are many qualifications to being human, like having a soul." He shot a harmless peer at Ro, who smiled at him. He hadn't forgotten their recent discussion of souls. "I may never have a soul, because I was not born with flesh. I was not--I was not even born."  
It was Jas this time who interceded, from the spot he'd claimed as his own on the floor. "That might not be true, Zee."  
The synthoid looked at the kid, caught off guard. Hope, as a word and as a feeling, came into his mind.   
"I read in a book once that not every human has a soul, and not everyone is born with one."  
Julie scoffed at her twerpy little brother. "When did you read a book that wasn't brought home from school?"  
Jas rolled his eyes, annoyed. "All right," he huffed, "it wasn't a book, really. It was a graphic novel."  
Julie couldn't help but snort in ridiculing laughter.   
"Go on," Zeta urged Jas. "I'm interested."  
"Well," Jas said, calmly taking control of the thoughts that raced in his mind, "I'm not sure that every human is born with a soul, but I like to believe that they are, or, at least, can get one. I think every living thing has to have a soul--eventually. Maybe it isn't something you're born with at all, no matter what you are or how you came to exist."  
"Oh," Ro suddenly said, "you mean it's more like something that's gained as you go through life, as you learn more about what it's like being alive. Maybe it's just something in you that's aware of your own existence." Ro, in the quiet stare of the siblings, faced Zee. She was tired and nearly numb, but still able to be playful. "So, tin man, you might not have been born with a soul, but you could still end up with one. You're earning it right now, even as we sit here. That's got to be worth something to you. Don't you think?"  
Zeta only nodded. He was too pleased to speak.  
The Dumes teens soon shuffled themselves off to bed, though it was difficult to tear themselves away from the synthoid sitting in their study, under their roof. The clock in the living room sweetly chimed half-past the hour of one and could be heard through the hallway and into the den. Julie was sure that Ro would be needing sleep after the adventure out in the rain. Feeling ever hospitable, especially now that she knew their secret, Julie offered Ro the use of her bedroom for the night. Ro declined, saying she'd feel more comfortable sleeping on the couch. Plus, she knew she needed to talk to Zeta, and that was best done exactly where they were, in the private study.   
Julie hesitated in front of Zeta, trying to form an awkward apology. "I'm sorry. I didn't know. I certainly wouldn't have--"  
Jas tugged at his sister's arm. "Forget it, Jule. Trust me."  
For once, she took her brother's advice and did let it go. She wasn't so awfully embarrassed, anyway. "Zee," she said with a wink, "you could've picked a less attractive hologram, that's for sure."   
Ro smiled and Zeta only stared at Julie blankly, but Ro had the inkling he was a touch amused. Julie hugged and kissed Zeta and Ro goodnight, and Jas just waved shyly from the door, calling the lethargic Boom-Boom to his side. As soon as it was shut, and they were certainly alone, Zeta focused attention to Ro.  
"Did it happen to you again?" he asked. He sat back into the chair he'd used most of the night, and Ro leaned into the arm rest.   
"It did." She bit her lip, afraid to go on. The experience was both emotionally close to her but visually far away.   
"Do you want to tell me? I worry about you."  
"The thing is . . . I can't really remember what happened. I only have impressions of what happened, like remembering something from my earliest dreams. I don't know if I was just dreaming, but it seemed real enough." When she got through the simple oration of the meeting with her father, Ro hastened to add: "There is an inconsistency in this which confuses me more than anything, even the hallucinations. It's the fact that I know my parents are dead. That is a fact. But my brother isn't. Yet, I've had visions of him. I don't understand that--more than I don't understand the rest."  
"I have no answers for you, Ro," Zeta replied in dissatisfaction. The encyclopedic brain he had lacked a depth in psychoanalysis and behavior interpretation. And though he knew Ro better than he knew any human, he still had no further insight.  
"That's all right. I didn't expect you would. There are riddles I want answered, sure, just not necessarily this one."  
"But there's something I've wanted to ask you, since the night we met Jas."  
"Well?" Ro said while waiting during Zee's extended silence. "What is it?"  
"Why did you keep lying to him, about your family? You know you have a brother---"  
"Do I?" Ro couldn't help but refract the concept. "I don't know much about him. And he's not really like my brother. But you're overlooking one giant point as to why I didn't mention him, and why I never do."  
Zeta lifted a shoulder, and his random human kinetics always threw Ro's mind into a tailspin.   
"I don't want people to know about him. I don't want anyone to know that we know each other. It's bad enough that Bucky knows, the little traitor. Casey doesn't deserve to be sucked into obscurity and threatened by the NSA simply because of some girl who happens to be his sister. That's not fair. I wouldn't wish it on him." Ro fell into the opposite chair, sprawling her legs over the arm's edge. "Make sense?"  
"Of course. If given a little more time I would've thought the same. I'll no longer be surprised if you never mention Casey MacCurdy again."  
Ro ran a hand through her hair, and left the fingers on her forehead. She was thinking back to the images of her father. There were a few things Pierce Rowen had said which Ro negated from her dissertation to Zeta. The stuff about her childhood, how she'd once been so interested in the wonder of life. It was something Zeta wouldn't understand. "What's '_mo stoir_' mean?  
He calculated the foreign words, but, ruefully, shook his head. "That is not a language I am equipped to know."  
"Probably just as well. . . . I wonder what would've happened if I'd taken my father's arm when he offered it."  
"Why didn't you?"  
"Something held me back," she said. "I don't know what it was." She kicked a gentle foot at Zee's elbow. "Maybe it was you!" She was joking, of course, but still there was that nagging suspicion in the far back of her mind that maybe it wasn't a joke. "I'd rather be here than anywhere else, I guess. You don't have to be afraid to let me out of your sight. I'm going to be fine."  
"I know." Zeta reached over to Ro's nearby bare foot and was inclined to tickle the bottom of it, but Ro snatched it away, fully knowing his intention. She scoured at him. Zeta smiled, as being caught before the crime was almost as fun as the tickling. "You should sleep now, Ro. It's late. And we should leave early."  
Ro found no cause to argue. The idea of sleep was a beautiful, happy dream. She hit Zeta on the arm mischievously. "Tell me more about the Seven Sisters tonight, will you?" The story was necessary for her that night, after her father's mention of the stars. And Ro was realizing her old inherent fascination with the sky, feeling that interest burning steadily to knew life. The world had been Ro's first crush, and she was falling back in love with the universe. Pierce Rowen had been right: she would remember what had so long ago been forgotten.  
Zeta looked up at her as she stood in front of him. He knew she was weary from the night, forlorn almost, but he wanted her mood lightened. "If you say please."  
She rolled her eyes. "Please," she said in a flat, drab voice. When Zeta agreed, as if he wouldn't, Ro laid down on the old plaid couch where Julie had sat earlier. Even that conversation seemed like ages ago, when only forty minutes or so had passed. Ro punched a throw pillow under her head, while Zeta draped his long coat over her. She snuggled under the black velveteen collar, with the blue synthetic-wool fabric laced around her fingers. Zee only had to tell about thirty seconds of the myth before Ro was asleep. 


	12. Twelve

12) 

Breakfast around the Dumes family table was a bit awkward for an outsider like Ro. Being farmers, the family awoke early, even Julie and Jas, who had to help with chores around the house and in the barns. But Ro made sure she got to the table, having dragged herself from the couch in the study toward the smell of food. She was pulling on Zeta's coat as she stepped in, yawning. There were plenty of good-mornings said to her, by Julie, Jas, Tess, though Zeta was not around and neither was Warren.   
"Coffee, Ro?" Tess asked, "or tea?"  
"Coffee, please, Tess. Where's Zee?"  
Jas answered, buttering wheat toast. "Outside, looking around. You can call him in. Dad, too. The food's almost ready."  
Food? Ro thought. What was already on the table? There were scrambled eggs in a covered dish, fried bacon, toast, jelly, butter, coffee, orange juice, sliced cantaloupe, tea--and the faint scent of pancakes, which must've been the main course, though it wasn't yet presented. Tess swept by with a coffee mug for Ro, and set her hand on the girl's shoulder.  
"You rest, Ro, drink your coffee. I'll go get Zee and Warren."  
Ro didn't protest. The softness of a night's sleep was still encompassing her, keeping her from experiencing the fine morning. The storm front had moved far beyond the Dumes farm, and in its stead were bright blue skies, a glorious golden sun and a fresh, clean odor in the warm air. It came through the open windows of the house, through the screen door in the laundry room. Ro leaned back in her chair, with a piece of toast dangling from her mouth. She wondered if this was what it was like for normal families, farm families, families across the world. A mouth-watering breakfast, a nice big house, loving parents, great siblings--it was all there should be in life. Then Ro sat forward, her elbows on the table, and a scowl touched her. She failed to see why she couldn't let it go. The image and the voice of her father came to her with the words he'd used last night. "You live in a dream world, mo stoir." Well, was that so bad?  
Through breakfast, Julie would let out a random giggle. Then her brother would be caught smiling, and in a few moments he was laughing. Warren clanked down his eating utensils to ask what the problem was. Julie made no excuses, and said it was "Nothing, Dad." Warren didn't press the issue. Julie gave Ro a secretive look. Ro knew they were giggling because of the secret, of knowing what Zeta was. If it was so unbelievable to them then, Ro thought, imagine how unbelievable it would be to them in a week or a month! Ro was glad, since it meant her presence and Zeta's might someday be forgotten by the Dumes'. Ro fancied she was not a very memorable sort of person.  
Zeta was absent from the table, but did pop in during the end of the meal. He asked that, when she was through, if Ro would please join him outside for a "private word," as he termed. Ro furrowed her brow and glanced away as Zee returned outside. She wondered what he would possibly have to talk about--and to make such a big deal about privacy. It seemed like they were almost always alone. After she'd eaten two pancakes--one blueberry and one chocolate chip--had cantaloupe, two cups of coffee and one piece of toast, she declared she was positively stuffed. Ro tried to help clear the table, or at least her plate, but Warren shooed her out of the task, and urged her to go talk to her friend instead.   
It took her a moment to find Zeta, but, as she'd often thought, he never blended in well. She could always find him in a crowd, despite his different use of holograms, so it was easy enough to spot him on an empty farm. He was in the barn, lingering over the horse stalls, and petting the nose of one tame brown mare when she entered.   
"What's up, Zee? You made a dramatic entrance this morning." She took off his blue-violet jacket and handed it back to him. "Take this, and stop giving it to me. I know it takes a lot of energy to keep a hologram away from you for so long. Julie's given me a coat, and I'll wear it from now on."  
Zeta accepted the jacket gladly, and he tugged it on with human adroitness. Ro stroked the white star muzzle of the contented, pleased horse when Zeta dropped his attention. The horse did not react to Zeta the way the dog Boom-Boom did. In fact, the horse even seemed to like Zeta. It was no wonder to Ro, then, that she'd discovered the synthoid in the barn.  
"I found something, Ro. I thought it would matter to you."  
She was giving little kisses to the horse when she suddenly stared up at Zee. "Oh?"  
From his pants pocket, he presented a thin waxy paper printed by an electric phone book listing. "I found this last night, while you were asleep. I knew what you were up to in the café, so I thought I would look while we were here. Take it."  
She did and examined it in nothing but caution. It stated the name, local address and phone number to a Mrs. Gwennie Rowen, of Glenview. "Zeta!" Ro reprimanded, ashamed of herself for allowing him to do something for her, and so surreptitiously! "You could've at least told me, so I'd be prepared. Do you know who she is?"  
"No."  
"Well, at least you haven't talked to her yet, without me."  
"Do you want to see her?"  
"Yes," she answered in promptness, handing the paper back to Zeta. "Right now, if we can." And, aside, to herself, she said, "I knew there was a reason we were meant to be here."  
Zeta tapped at her arm as she began to reverse, to return to the house. "Why, Ro? Why's it important that you speak with her?"  
Ro scrutinized him carefully, a vague feeling of frustration creeping in her system. She couldn't understand why Zeta, a perfectly intelligent robot, hadn't figured it out. "I just want to know someone who knew them, my parents. That's important to me. I'll never be able to bring them back, but someone else might help me find out what they were like."  
Zee said he understood, but he wasn't entirely sure he did.   
"You don't know what it's like, really," Ro murmured. She tipped her forehead into his arm, her long fingers gripped to his elbow. "You don't know what a weird feeling it is to be losing your mind."  
"No, I don't," he responded, using the answer she already knew. "And it isn't something that I can pretend, either. I am sorry about this, Ro. You will do what you need to do to feel better, and I will help in the ways that I can." He patted her on the head and kissed the top of it, in that supportive almost fatherly way.  
They returned to the house, where Tess was still cleaning up the breakfast mess. Jas and Julie were no where in sight. Tess explained the absence of the children. "I made them go upstairs and prepare their things for school. They start soon. Is there something you wanted to see them about?"  
Ro explained. "I've been looking for a distant relative of mine, and there's someone in Glenview who might know where I can find him. Do you know Mrs. Gwennie Rowen?"  
Tess's expression lightened, and a dimple deepened in her right cheek. "Old Gwennie, huh? Sure, I know her. Sweet old lady, but very batty. That's sort of her nickname among the locals: Batty Gwennie."  
"I'd like to go see her."  
"Of course. I'll give you directions. She has a great big old house not far from downtown. She still uses gas heating. Well, all the old houses in that area do. I'm sure she'll see you. I think she appreciates company, and we've been to see her a few times. She's an eccentric one, though."  
Ro wasn't surprised at Mrs. Rowen's renowned eccentricity. She figured anyone who might be slightly related to her wouldn't be anything _but_ eccentric and batty. In fact, she was rather proud. Given her own present askew mind, Ro felt nearly related to the woman without even meeting her. "Could we maybe borrow a vehicle?"  
Tess gave a smile, something mysterious glinting in her hazel eyes. "I've got a better idea. Tippen and Howie need some exercise. Can you ride at all?"  
Ro and Zeta just stared at her in horror. Horses? Was the woman actually suggested they ride horses? Ro swallowed. "A little," she managed to say.  
Jas was fetched to help dress the horses for a ride into town, and he decided he would accompany them on his own little mustang named Presto. Ro was introduced formally to Tippen, who'd been the affectionate mare whose nose she'd petted earlier. When Tess had gone back to the house, and it was just her and Jas and Zeta, Ro spat out to her friend.   
"Zee, you can't ride!"  
Zeta was holding to the reins of the horse Howie, just under the bit. Whatever magical touch Zeta lacked with other animals, he certainly possessed it with his equine friends. Jas was next to him, about to help him into the saddle. "I'll learn," he said to Ro, and was on the horse faster than a regular cowboy. "See if you can keep up." He clicked his tongue like a master horseman, and Howie was out of the barn in no time.   
Jas snickered at Zeta's derision. "He's getting his sense of humor from you, Ro. That's probably not a good thing."  
Ro frowned and jumped into the saddle. "Where'd he learn to do that, anyway? Ride like that? It's so archaic, horseback riding."  
"It's not the type of thing a synthoid would do," Jas said. He was beside her on his horse, and they went out of the barn together, into the sunshine.   
"It's not the type of thing anyone born after twenty-twenty would do," Ro replied. Jas ignored her; he'd been born well after twenty-twenty and grew up with horses. He knew Ro would enjoy it despite any crude comment said in haste. Jas took the lead, his cute little gray mustang happy to be in the front, ahead of the elder horses. It was not far to town, and the day was so glorious that it was perfect for a ride. The dirt road brought them to the main street, where their journey in Glenview had started the day before. Then they traveled north for about a mile. A creek, risen high from the rain the night before, trickled and bubbled happily under a single-lane bridge. There was a scarce amount of trees, and the countryside surrounding them looked almost arid. Some cows had wandered into the street, through a break in a road-side fence, but the horses just wandered around them, and the cows went on chewing their cud, but were curious about the passers-by.   
Ro observed Zeta, and he seemed more comfortable on the back of the creature than she did. "Why do you have to be so good at everything, Zee?" she asked.  
"Do I look like this is easy? It should be. I'm not doing anything. Just sitting."  
"Where did you learn how to ride, to control the animal?"  
"Watching old western movies late at night in hotel rooms, Ro."   
Jas laughed and Ro smiled and relinquished her one chance at arguing with him. Zeta enjoyed having their undivided attention, and quickly found a new hologram program. He transformed his outfit to something western, complete with hat and spurs.  
"Zeta!" Ro said. She couldn't help but chuckle, for he looked so endearingly ridiculous.  
"I'm having fun, Ro. Aren't you?"  
"Of course, but--"  
He ignored her, and kicked his spurs gently into the flank of the horse. "Yee-haw!" he shouted, as he galloped past them. It startled the other two horses so that they began to canter, and finally gallop. Ro was ill-prepared and nearly fell off. But she soon found a trick to guiding the animal, tugged at the reins, slowed Tippen down to a leisure canter, and was again riding without a racing heart. Zeta awaited ahead, with his--as Ro thought in her mind--"glistening steed" prancing in the dirt. Ro scowled at him to let him know of her disappointment. He did nothing but say one simple thing. "You do think we should laugh more."  
"At least change that outfit," Ro insisted. She was blushing in her cheeks at the sincerity and truth of his comment.  
"No," he defied. "I like it, and it amuses you. Why should I, when I like both it and amusing you?"  
Ro looked at Jas, and Jas had nothing to say. He shrugged.  
"This is how I am, Ro," Zeta said carefully, almost sullenly. "I'm always just playing a part--a role."  
"That's not true, Zee. I'm sure of it." Ro knew what she was talking about, and was about to say, but for a distraction up ahead. The town was forming around them. They'd begun to pass a few homes, old places set back from the roadside, with overgrown lawns in need of watering, dilapidated wrap-around porches, dead trees with limbs hanging down, but still with an ancient grace of an age long ago. Ro forgot what she was going to say to Zeta, at least momentarily, until she remembered it later, and promised herself she would assert her opinion when the time was appropriate. She tried remembering the directions to Mrs. Rowen's house that Tess had provided. Ro was too lazy to reach in her pocket for the paper, on which were jotted north and south guidelines accompanied by street names. She did remember that the road where Mrs. Rowen lived was directly off Main Street, and the house was the best-looking and grandest in the neighborhood and therefore was difficult to miss.   
They were almost blown off the road several times as speeding hovercars zoomed by. Ro raised her fist in protest of blatant reckless driving, and all she got in return was a blast from the horn. Anyone who happened to be out in the town would stare at the odd trio, particularly cowboy-dressed Zeta. Jas found himself the source of entertainment to his townspeople, and was delighted. He relished in it. "Hello, Mr. Simpson!" Jas shouted and waved to a gray-haired man across the street. Mr. Simpson waved back with a verbal greeting, then keenly studied the other two riders. Several others stopped what they were doing to watch.  
"Garsh," Ro said to Jas, in a fake country drawl, "haven't people in this here town seen a soul ride a horse before?"  
"Oh," Jas began, "we Dumes' are known for riding our horses to town. And there's a few people who still do too. Come on, we'd better hurry up to Mrs. Gwennie's." He clicked his tongue, a command to his mustang Presto to speed up a little. Tippen and Howie followed, without their needing any such command. The horse in the front was guide enough for them. They climbed their way up the slope of a gradual hill, away from the sterile buildings of downtown Glenview, all ten blocks of it, and into the historic residential area. Finally Ro spotted a street name that was familiar.  
"Jas, I think that's our turn."  
"I think so, too." He kept the line in order, but turned to the right, crossed the main road, and onto the side street. The houses that lined it were fenced in iron and covered with ancient hedges or ivy, probably as old as the houses themselves, and everything smelled of remodeling tools, wood, and the sound of nail guns and power tools was common. The city was working hard to renovate its heritage.  
"After the war," Jas said, as though picking up Ro and Zeta's thoughts, "Glenview decided it should do some work on its oldest homes. There was a big tax debate and everything about it. Lots of town meetings. My parents went to a few, because they have an old house, too. That was before I was born. They've been working on it since. Of course, the depression after the war hit everyone hard. The town stopped working for a while."  
Ro did not like to think about "The Great War," as everyone of her generation and that above her called it. All she wanted to think about was reaching Mrs. Gwennie Rowen's house, and finding out if this eccentric woman was, perhaps, a distant--or close?--relative. Meandering on past a few more homes, some already renovated, some not, in the middle of the street they came upon the most enormous and stately mansion. A horseshoe drive wound in front of the house, into a columned portico, set in front of large wooden doors that were handsomely inlayed with stained glass. In the rounded portion of the drive was a lush grass bed, with a brick tiered fountain, and a plaster angel at the top, who poured from holy outstretched palms an endless stream of clear water into the plates below. The plates overflowed and cascaded to the pool, the lowest tier, creating the harmonic noise of a waterfall. Late-blooming flowers gave the house a splash of color here and there, like a smattered impressionistic painting.  
"This has got to be it," Ro said aloud, and pulled at the reins to stop Tippen. She stared at the house, liking the way it looked from afar, but had little courage to actually ride to the door.   
"It is," Jas said. He was fearless as he commanded Presto up the pebble drive, which was lined with a variety of plantain lilies; some purple flowers bloomed from the high sprigs and bees went in and out of the shapely petal bonnets, busy as if it was still spring. Jas dismounted in the shade of the portico, dripping with vine roses that were no longer in bloom. The dark foliage provided a touch of antiquity to a house that needed as little as it could get. Jas wrapped the leather straps to an original hitching post, in the shape of a horse's head. Zeta and Ro followed suit, and found a second hitching post which to tie their animals. Jas was about to reach for the doorbell, when the voice of Mrs. Gwennie came over the intercom, out of the circular speaker just to the side of the bell.  
"Who's there?" commanded the old woman, definitely with some bite to her voice.   
"It's Jas Dumes, Mrs. Gwennie."  
"Oh, little Jasper, huh? And who's that with you?"  
"A couple friends of mine that would like to speak with you."  
"About what?"  
Jas looked at Ro. She took a step to the intercom and boldly stated her reason for being there.  
"Hi, Mrs. Gwennie Rowen? My name is Rosalie Rowen. I'd like to ask you about your husband's family."  
Without another word, the door promptly opened, and there stood old Mrs. Gwennie. She shot black beady eyes at Ro, the blonde-haired girl she'd seen speak through the surveillance. "Rowen, you say? Come in, Miss Rosalie Rowen." She allowed Jasper and Ro in while she held the door open. But when Zeta tried to get near the threshold, Mrs. Gwennie let him see only the bottom of her hand. She wanted an explanation. "Who's this cowboy, Rosalie?"  
Ro almost laughed, but she waved a hand dismissingly. "That's just Zee. Trust me, he's not as crazy as he looks."  
"Oh," Mrs. Gwennie said, scanning Zee up and down, and he waited patiently for some synopsis of his character. "Well, that's a very elaborate costume you've got there, young man. You may as well come in, too."  
As Mrs. Gwennie was escorting them through the high-ceiled foyer, Ro took Zeta roughly by the arm. "Really, Zeta! John Wayne just called and he wants his clothes back!"  
Zeta frowned at her, but took her hand in his and followed Mrs. Gwennie, who hobbled along with good sinew for her age. To the far left of the wide foyer, she entered a drawing room and her company had no choice but to trail after her. Despite the age of the home, and even its antique design, the drawing room was decorated in the most modern, monochromatic style, with the latest in lighting and home entertainment technology. Mrs. Gwennie obviously spent many hours of the day trying to find a means to alleviate boredom and loneliness. The drawing room had a comfortable, lived-in feel, despite the modern bare décor. The old woman returned to her favorite pale blue pastel recliner and slithered into the seat. She gestured for her company to sit near her as they chose.  
Before she got any further into the conversation, she compressed a button on a remote unit set at a side table. Suddenly, through the door of the room stepped in, on tip-toes, a dainty little servant, a girl who looked about twelve, but this was not supported by the logic of labor force laws. "Refreshments, please, and tea." The little maid curtsied and exited, making eye contact with no one in the room but Mrs. Gwennie.  
Ro leaned into Zeta, her arm over his, her hand still in his. She felt very suddenly intimidated. Zeta squeezed her fingers in reassurance.  
"So, Rosalie," Mrs. Gwennie said, "you're a Rowen, then?"  
"Yes, ma'am," Ro replied. "Rowen with an 'e', like you."  
Mrs. Gwennie's voice had playfulness under it, but the attempt to hide it came only to the very edge, to suggest she was very aware of everything she said, every oration. "Don't call me 'ma'am'! Just call me Gwennie. Everyone else does, among other things. And since you're a Rowen with an 'e' you certainly may."   
Before Ro could give any gracious thanks, a cat wandered in and hopped to Gwennie's thin lap. A brown and gold domestic tiger, with round eyes, in a perfect shade of feline green that penetrated the realm for any obscurity. The sharp claws kneaded and sunk into Gwennie's old bony leg, but she did not seem to notice. She rubbed the cat's slightly tufted ears and he purred so loudly it echoed in the still room.   
"Well, my husband left me years ago, Rosalie. He died quite suddenly back in twenty-twelve. But I was married to him for forty-six years, so I suspected I'm as close to a Rowen as one can get. To which Rowens might you belong, dear?" Gwennie glanced harmlessly at Zeta, as if to determine what his role was, aside from quiet and aloof cowboy. He was not a Rowen, she could tell as much by looking at him. He was too exotic, too dark, and Gwennie had only known but a few brunette Rowens. She glanced at him again, this time in study, but her look switched to Ro.  
"I was abandoned when I was younger, and grew up in foster homes and orphanages. I was hoping you could help me."  
Gwennie smacked her lips and then pushed them together. She had to think for a moment. "Well, your parents' names?"  
"I think my father's name is Pierce Rowen, my mother Delores. Delores with an 'e' and not an 'o'. There's a chance she may have gone by Lola. And I have a brother."  
"His name?"  
"I don't know."   
Gwennie examined Ro in almost a harsh way, as though she knew the girl was lying, but for some good reason. Orphans don't lie about their family unless they feel they have to, in order to protect them. Gwennie decided to play along to see where it went.   
Ro was situated so she could look at Zeta, and she didn't even have to ask him what article of hers she wanted. He often kept important things for her, just for safe-keeping, and there only a few things worth keeping. She grabbed the photo of her brother and leaned over to hand it to Mrs. Gwennie.  
"Handsome boy," she said.  
"Yes, he is," Ro replied, dreamily.  
"Red hair."  
"Sandy, really. The picture is faded." Ro gulped and hoped she hadn't said too much.  
Gwennie liked the guise of the boy, he looked smart and honorable, not one who would desert his sister or his family. "Who gave this to you, dear?"  
"My last foster family, the Morgans of Maryland. Actually--" Ro hesitated, and took the picture back from Gwennie, "--my foster sister gave it to me."  
"He isn't dead, though." She'd said it as a statement, not as a question. And Rosalie didn't attempt a contradiction. Lucid to Gwennie was the fact that Rosalie Rowen knew her brother, at least, but was still on the quest for a deeper understanding of family. The quest was often undertaken by anyone, and not just orphans.  
Gwennie paused as the dainty maid brought in tea and cucumber sandwiches made from crustless sourdough bread. Once the ceramic tea set and platter was arranged in the middle of the coffee table, the maid curtsied again and departed stealthily, no one barely aware of her presence. Gwennie poured the hot tea, first for Jas, then Ro, but Zeta was not offered any. She explained in little detail. "You, sir," she said to Zeta, "I expect will not want tea?"  
"No, thank you, Mrs. Rowen."  
"I didn't think so." Gwennie elaborated no further, and returned her attention to the girl. "Now, Rosalie, where were we?"  
Ro was about to remind her when Gwennie remembered.  
"Well, it's good that you at least know your parents' names. But, unfortunately, I've never met a Pierce Rowen. It's a name I'd remember."  
The news didn't surprise Ro, but it did manage to numb her for a sticky moment.   
"Have you tried to find your adoption papers?"  
"I couldn't get to them, and there may not even be any. I've seen my foster papers but they weren't any help. As part of the privacy laws passed some years before I was born, I'm not allowed to look at documents my parents may have had, especially when I don't have proof of who I am."  
"Well," Gwennie's spunk would not be denied, "there's ways around that, my dear."  
Jas snickered, and Ro briefly smiled. Mrs. Gwennie must've been ornery in her younger years.  
"If you want to play against the government," Gwennie said, and peered at Zee out of the corner of her eye, "you have to be willing to play as dirty as they do. Forge a birth certificate, if you don't have yours, and get what you need from the Department of Adoption in Gotham. That would be the best way. Don't bother with Children's Services. They would just give you an endless runaround." She sipped her tea without a slurp, then set the cup and saucer upon the edge of the table. "Now, how about if I try to find another way to help? I'll just be a moment. Please, excuse me."  
Gwennie rose from her chair, the cat hopped away. The tiger-striped tabby walked in Gwennie's path as they both disappeared through a pocket door across the room, that led into a fair and bright chamber.  
"Zeta," Ro said to him, her head heavy on his shoulder, "I think I'm going to be sick."  
"It's all right, Ro."  
Jas tried an attempt to assure her. "She's the best woman in town, really, and she seems to like you."  
Ro rubbed her forehead and her eyes on the corner of Zeta's coat, groaning. "I have butterflies in my stomach."  
"Ro," Zeta began, and whispered very quietly into her ear, so that not even Jas, who sat across the low table from them, could hear, "I think she knows about me."  
"That's impossible," Ro said, although she had had her suspicions as well. She'd seen the way Mrs. Gwennie had given Zee a few too many awkward leers. "Isn't it, Zee?" Suddenly, the butterflies in her stomach were roaring in a rapid, ceaseless batting of wings. She shifted her eyes hastily between Zeta's, desirous of some oath all her fears were unfounded. He provided her with nothing, except his cool hand over hers. The butterflies wouldn't stop. 


	13. Thirteen

13) 

Zeta had no time to respond, if he could think of a response, since Mrs. Gwennie returned to the room. In her slim, liver-spotted arms she carried a photo album and a digital picture viewer. Instead of returning to her chair, she stood between Zeta and Ro, and waved a hand at Zeta. "Move your bum on over, cowboy, I'm coming through. God forbid you two should be separated from each other for more than a minute."  
Jas covered up a grin using the back of his hand. He didn't want to offend by thinking Mrs. Gwennie's unexpected humor of Ro and Zeta's close relationship was funny, especially Ro and Zeta.   
Gwennie sat beside Ro, and Zeta moved to a spot beside Jasper. Jas stared at Zeta, as a cowboy, and even managed to smile at his image.   
The pages of the photo album were unfurled first. The first page was dabbled with colorless snapshots of a young Mrs. Gwennie and her family. "I was born in 1946, in Templeton, Indiana." Gwennie let out a little laugh when she noticed Ro's astonishment. "Yes, dear, I am very old. If you're good at your math you'll know I'm ninety-seven. Anyway, my whole family came from Templeton. Most of the Rowens did. Two hundred years of Indians! Oh, we're all from Ireland originally. Did you know that, dear? Your people are from Ireland?"  
"No," Ro said blankly, "I didn't know that."  
"Must be nice to know, isn't it?"  
"Yes, it is." Ro's butterflies were slowing down their active wings, no longer tying her insides into tight, unalterable knots. Her mouth, however, was resolutely grim. She thought through the names of those relatives that she knew. Irish names. "I guess that would make sense. Pierce, Delores, Casey, Rosalie. Pretty Irish names, if you ask me."  
"Oh, absolutely." Mrs. Gwennie's eyes never wavered as she leafed through the snapshots from her childhood and beyond. "Well, most of them went back there not too long ago. When the North finally got their republic, and after the war, some of the more influential Rowens went over there to help in restoration of government. Some of them, unfortunately, died. The rebels were angry and wanted Northern Ireland back the way it was. They fought like children with army figurines, but with real humans, and they died like real humans. Fools!" Old Gwennie shrugged one shoulder, in mock sympathy. "That's just fine. At least the North has their union with the Republic now. What it mess it all was, and I remember it so well, though it's been barely ten years since the Common War ended. Blasted war." Gwennie leered a scholarly somewhat sour expression to Ro, whose stupefied gape offered no understanding. "Good heavens, didn't they teach you any of this in school?"  
"It's really hard not to know a thing about the Common War, Mrs. Gwennie. A person would have to be dead not to know of it. It's been a while since I was in a classroom, but I've heard a thing or two about Northern Ireland, and the consequences, I guess, it had on the rest of the world."  
"Probably just as well. I swear they can't get education systems right since the war. That's what happens when you elect Republican leaders into office for three straight terms!" Gwennie purposely let the political topic disintegrate. It always frustrated her. "Let's see," Gwennie paused, holding up a snapshot of at least ten of her relatives. She pointed off the faces in the photo and said their names. When she was through, she asked if any of the names sounded familiar. Ro had to say no. "This might be too far back to do us any good. Maybe we need to take a big leap forward in time." She shoved away the photo album to the floor by her feet, where the cat sat primly, and brought up the digital view screen she promptly set it in Ro's lap. Ro took it in her hands and gave the fairly old contraption, built sometime in the twenty-teens, a brief investigation. Mrs. Gwennie was shuffling through data cards, examining the dates marked on each. "Let's see. What year were you born, Rosalie? About twenty-twenty-five?"  
"Twenty-twenty-six, Gwennie. In May."  
"Right. Here's one from about that time." Gwennie popped in the cartridge and turned the viewer on. Ro shuffled through the images one by one, examining each face meticulously. "This is from twenty-twenty-six, in the summer, from a reunion I went to back in Templeton. You would've been about six months old then."  
None of the pictures displayed on the four-by-six LCD screen hit a valuable, resounding chord in Ro. As soon as the portraits began to repeat, she handed the viewer back to Gwennie.  
"I don't think I'm going to find them, Mrs. Rowen. We might not even be related."  
"Possibly not," Gwennie agreed. She feathered through arthritic fingers some of Ro's soft blonde locks. "You do have the Rowen look."  
Ro had caught a glimpse of her own bright blonde hair and angularly shaped face mimicked in some of the portraits, but it was hardly conclusive. If her brother had sandy hair, what was to stop her other relatives from being anything else but blonde and blue-eyed? Ro sighed to admit defeat.  
Gwennie was not going to allow Rosalie to leave bereft of optimism. "If the internet is still good for anything, use it to look into the Common War. A whole lot of your ancestors died fighting in that business, and it would do you good to know a thing or two about it. And I say that if you have the opportunity, Rosalie, you should go to Templeton. Oh, I know it's a long way from West Country, Oregon, but you might find something there."  
"I'll try," Ro promised, and lifted briskly to her feet. She was ready to be on the road, ready to leave Glenview and West Country. Going to Templeton, Indiana, was the last thing on Ro's mind. There was someone else she wanted to visit first, if she wasn't already too late. And Ro wouldn't find her in Indiana.  
Jas was munching on his third crustless sandwich, and shoved the few remaining bites into his mouth. He chewed slowly as he rose, and Zeta stood beside him, the spurs on the heels of his cowhide boots tingling like sleigh bells. Ro was reminded of his costume, and felt both embarrassment but also, like he said, amusement. Mrs. Rowen looked Zeta up and down for a second time.  
"You're very formidable," she acknowledged. She poked him on the shoulder with a dagger-like finger. "You keep your girl out of trouble, you hear?"  
Zeta tipped his head in a moderate affirmative bow. "I do my best, Mrs. Rowen. She keeps me out of trouble, too."  
"I'm sure she does. Rosalie's a girl who knows how to handle things. The trick for you is to know when she ought to handle something herself, and you keep your nose out of it."  
Ro found herself complimented by the remarks in almost modest bashfulness. She enjoyed being respected by elders, particularly those who did not really know her so well. Still, Mrs. Gwennie's intuition with Ro seemed more pronounced than what it ought to have been, considering how briefly the two had known each other. Perhaps it was a sign they were related.  
Jasper felt the inclination to say something that was on his mind, about Zeta and Ro. "They take care of each other, Mrs. Gwennie." He meant it as a further compliment to Ro's capabilities to handle anything thrown at her, no matter the size of the weapon, the infinity of strength--or if it was just the mediocrity of everyday life she wrestled through.  
"I'm sure they do, Jasper." Gwennie was escorting them to the door, this time walking with the use of an elm wood cane, engraved and ended with flat brass covers. The tabby cat in his silken brown coat stepped on padded mitts next to Gwennie, to whom he was ever loyal. She turned and rapped on the teen's round belly, the part that was exposed, though the boy was mostly hidden behind Rosalie. "I'm sure they do. I never heard of a robot who could be as caring as this one seems to be, but I suppose there are a few out there, with glitches in their brains."  
Ro fell dead in her tracks, then Jas bumped into her side, then Zeta bumped into Jas and Ro, and Ro set a firm foot forward to keep her balance. Gwennie admired their shocked appearance, relished in it, even. She had always waited until the right moment to surprise people, being in possession of such enormous theatrical and comedic timing.  
"No one ever knows what's going to come out of Gwennie Rowen's mouth next!" Gwennie lifted her head and let out a mirthful guffaw that filled the room corner to corner, edge to edge, ceiling to floor. She pointed the end of her cane, a worn scratched bottom, to Zeta. "I knew it from the almost the first second I saw you. I knew what you were."  
Hostile and newly unsure of the situation, Ro grabbed the end of the cane. She neither appreciated nor understood Mrs. Gwennie's outburst. "Wait, Gwennie, he's not evil."  
Gwennie set the stick quietly to her side. Ro had misjudged, too quick to think ill of people. Gwennie hadn't meant to condemn Zeta in any way. "Dear Rosalie, I never said he was."  
Zeta spoke up, though he lingered shyly behind Ro. "How did you know, Mrs. Gwennie?"  
"Oh," Gwennie's eyes, which had seen so much of life, dispatched a youthful playfulness, "I suspect I knew along the same lines that your Rosalie knows." She waved her stick at Zeta crazy outfit. "You don't have to wear that getup on my account. Actually, take it all off--show me what you really look like. I'm curious." Gwennie squinted and took a cautionary step backward, as though she expected some fowl monster born in the underworld to form before her. But once Zeta appeared before her as a synthoid, she took his new shape with ample and focused calm. Zeta allowed her to be near him, close enough so she could inspect, and she did so thoroughly, lifting her thin-rimmed spectacles to her nose now and then, which, when not in use, dangled from a chain around her neck. "Synthoid, aren't you?" she asked, just out of the blue, looking up to Zeta's white lenses. She was not afraid of his scanning her with robotic eyes, of his doing everything almost automatically.  
"Yes," Zeta replied. He tilted his head at an angle, then transformed back to his normal hologram, complete with gray shirt, black pants and long violet-blue overcoat.   
Mrs. Gwennie approved of his new appearance. "Much better," she said, giving a nod. "How these things have changed!" She laughed again, at the elapse of time and the growth of technology. "You're not quite a masterpiece, but you're unique. Adamantium frame, complex wiring, you've got it all. I'd say you're built pretty well, very sturdy, but I don't know my technology like some of you kids do."  
Zeta's gape at Gwennie, although penetrating, was more inquisitive rather than blank. "How do you know of synthoids?"  
Mrs. Gwennie just grunted characteristically. "The government and I have a nice and cozy history together."  
Zeta tried to select appropriate questions for Gwennie, though so many were running through his mind at a rapid, ungraspable speed. "Do you know of Dr. Selig? Dr. Eli Selig?"  
Gwennie gave a throaty laugh and, in place, shuffled her withered feet. "Only by his amassed reputation as one of the top geniuses of the last fifty years. But I've never had the pleasure of meeting him."  
"There's some speculation that he's dead," Zeta offered, as though it was merely suggestion, not fact.  
"I haven't heard that. And I think I would find out. The last I heard he was working on something at Cryobin. But that was months ago at least. He hadn't been there in ages. Are you looking for him?"  
"Yes," Zeta said, Ro saying the same word congruently. Then Zeta added a comment which was often displeasing to him. "He doesn't work for Cryobin any longer. His last business---"  
Gwennie cut him off. "Of course not. Dr. Selig is too valuable to the development of technologies for the government's use. And now that Cryobin is so out in the open, I'm sure he's vanished."  
"How do you know of Cryobin?"  
"Everyone knows of Cryobin," was her tart answer. "At least," she paused on her way to the door, as though she still wished they would leave, "everyone knows of Cryobin who wants to know of Cryobin. They weren't always who you think they are now. I'm sure they'd rather that I not elaborate."  
Ro stood beside Gwennie. This was some new thread being tossed into the conversation, and Ro forgot about the Rowens entirely, and pushed it far from her mind in favor of Zeta, whose hope of freedom always seemed more obtainable than her hope of finding family. She could forget, sometimes without trying, who she was when Zeta's chances of liberty surfaced. "Will you tell us what you know of Cryobin? Early Cryobin?" It seemed useless to follow up on Cryobin's history, yet Dr. Selig had worked there, and it may lead to something they hadn't considered before.  
Gwennie stared at Rosalie for a dour moment, then a smiled touched her face, and a pale pink appeared in her sunken cheeks. "I knew someone who worked there. He was one of the Cryobin founders." She saw the stirring of hope in Ro's clear eyes, but dismissed it in brief nonchalance. "But that was years ago, when it was a part of the government's covert operations, a section of the NSA no one talked about. Back then, Cryobin didn't exist. And you," she looked at Zeta, "were just a glint in the government's dreamful war-driven eye. They had big plans for your kind!" She huffed annoyingly, again sick of the government, then reposed. "I know someone who works there now. Not in an esteemed position, mind you." Gwennie tapped her stick on the floor as a demonstration of her urgency and surprising burst of the emotion within her. "I will make a phone call to look into your friend Dr. Selig. Wait here." She floated lightly, unhampered by dry thoughts and livened by the temptation of revenge. As soon as she disappeared through the same pocket door as before, Jas gripped Ro's arm.  
"Ro," he said, "this is amazing. Imagine that batty woman knowing someone who works for Cryobin. I'd never heard anything about that before!"  
Zeta remained taciturn. "She keeps her secrets. There are many."  
Jas ignored him, still excited at this arisen opportunity. "I don't know who this doctor is that you're looking for, or much about Cryobin, but if you're looking for him and she can help, I'm--I'm so glad that we met and I could bring you here. Talk about your coincidences!"  
"I know!" Ro exclaimed, her volume not as hushed as it should've been. If Mrs. Gwennie was listening just across the wall, she would not care. Ro held to Zeta on the cuffs of his jacket, unable to contain her new fervor. "Zeta! You might find out if Dr. Selig is still alive! Someone at Cryobin might know."  
He was more sanguine than he appeared.  
"Well? What do you think?" She expected some burst of action from a pleased Zeta, but found the synthoid to be uncommonly reserved, even for him.   
"I will say something," he said intently, "when I really find out. Just wait, Ro." He would not feel optimism, no matter how trivial an amount, only to have the optimism crushed to pieces. He closed his eyes briefly, as though tired of the tedious waiting, the tedious hope, just as Mrs. Gwennie returned to her company in the drawing room.   
Again, she tapped her stick on the floor. "The man I know who works there is out of the country, and won't be back for a while. He has business in Melbourne. I didn't pry. Instead, I left a message and he'll call me when he can. If you two must return to the road, I will give you my address and number. You call me in a few days. And I will have some answers for you then."  
Zeta felt neither hope nor disappointment. Ro was displeased. She'd expected something of foundation, but would live with hope for as long as there was still hope. Mrs. Gwennie glimpsed Ro's saddened heart, and she touched the girl affectionately on the chin.  
"Never fear, my dear. I'm here to help you. Anything I can do to thwart the business of Cryobin, or the NSA or the government in general, the happier an old lady I'll be."  
"Why?" Ro asked, her brow drawn together in curiosity. "What did any of them do to you?"  
"Let's just say they stole a few things that were very precious to me," she patted Ro's fleshy cheek and blinked away the lingering melancholia, afraid that Ro might notice what haunts were in the past. "I'm sorry I couldn't help more with your family dear. Wait," she suddenly said, having an idea, "let me see that picture of your brother again."  
Zeta took it from his pocket and handed it to Mrs. Gwennie. She lifted her spectacles and examined the picture a second time, but with no more thoroughness than before.   
"If it's all right with you, I think I'll scan this and send a copy to my nephew in Indiana. Maybe he knows someone . . . . It's possible." She waited for Ro's approval.  
Ro hesitated, and she wasn't sure why. For guidance or support, she looked to Zeta. He gestured widely with a hand to symbolize an indifference. It was her decision, he let it be so and would not interfere. He tried to do as much as he could so Ro could find family members who'd remained illusive, but this was something she had to decide for herself. There was no harm that he could foresee. Ro turned back to Gwennie and nodded her compliance.   
The photo was scanned and handed back to Zeta. Gwennie wrote out her number and address for Ro, but told Zeta he ought to memorize it. He immediately did so. Before showing them to the door, Gwennie called out for the maid, who appeared precipitously. The maid was instructed to take pictures of Mrs. Gwennie with her new friends. It was done and printed out for her guests in a matter of minutes, even one of just Ro and Mrs. Rowen. The pictures were for Ro to keep for herself, in case she should "end up in Templeton," Gwennie said. The pictures could provide proof that Ro Rowen knew Gwennie Rowen. Ro was most thankful, and tried to remain hopeful that someday she would know who her parents were, and give a name to the sandy-haired brother in the picture.   
Jas and Zeta returned to the horses, while Ro lingered in the doorway a moment with "Batty" Gwennie, who did not seem quite so strange any longer. Ro, facing the front lawn and about to step out, reversed promptly. She made her way back into the foyer, and closed the door behind her. Gwennie and Ro shared a simultaneous look of profound sincerity.  
"What's his name?" Gwennie asked quietly, and gave the picture of Ro's brother a lift.  
"Casey," Ro answered. "Casey Rowen MacCurdy."  
Gwennie nodded affectively, and she gave the copy of the photo back to Ro. "I won't be needing it, not as long as I have his name."  
Ro took and, after creasing it a couple of times, shoved it in her pocket. "I think we were born in California, but while he stayed after our parents died, I somehow ended up in East Country, on the opposite side of the world, nearly."   
On a stand in the foyer, beside the start of the wide stairs, Gwennie found a pen and paper and wrote out the name Casey MacCurdy.  
Ro frowned in a moment of loneliness. "Everyone I know is dead, except him."  
"And you want to find someone who knew your family?"  
"Exactly, if it can be done."  
Gwennie held Ro's pointed chin in the palm of her hand, lifting it a little. Ro's pout disappeared. "It can be. I'll do what I can. Call me in a few days, Rosalie. We may be related yet." She kissed the girl on the cheek and shooed her on the way.   
Ro waved farewell through the ajar door as she passed on her horse, in a trot to catch up with Zee and Jas already at the end of the driveway. Then, as she rounded the corner of the portico, Ro turned away, unable to face Mrs. Gwennie any longer. Mrs. Rowen had been a help, the batty old woman who lived in Glenview's most esteemed mansion, who was something of a notable recluse, who had suspicious ties to Cryobin, and who was madly bitter toward the government. 

--

Notes

The Common War  
Since the rest of the series tends to evolve around what happened during the Common War, you ought to know what it really is, right? Well, if you don't want to spoil the surprise, then stop reading this note. I had a note for it in another store, hmm, early in Journeys, I think. From said book, it's described best:  
_It began in the mid-twenties, perhaps 2025, but no one was absolutely certain since the usurping rebels had been underground for so long, planning and scheming the downfall of British rule. It wasn't until 2029 that the bloodiest battles were fought, drenching the soil and streets of Ireland, Scotland, England and Wales in bodies and rubble. The Irish Rebellion turned into a Scottish Rebellion by early 2030. Then, like wildfire, any oppressed commonwealth or country across the world rebelled: The Common War had begun. It ended four years later as it'd started: in Ireland, with the Irish Rebels crowding the disrupted urban mess of Belfast, commanding peace when they had sparked the war._

Adamantium frame...  
Whoa, isn't adamantium like . . . that weird metal that Wolverine's claws and skeletal sheaths are made out of? -- Very perceptive, my little comic-book reading disciples! In the show, Zeta was made out of boring old titanium alloy, to date the most indestructable metal. I decided I'd give a little spice to that by bringing into a DC Comics world a bit of Marvel's universe. If I was in the mood for a huge overhaul, which I'm not, I'd use the name of a metal that I came up with in place of adamantium, called litamtium. 

East Country  
Ro did end up on the east coast, in Maryland. Unlike in the show, which had Hillsburg as a dinky logging town in Oregon (possibly after Roseburg), my Hillsburg is Hagerstown, Maryland.


	14. Fourteen

14) 

They were in a canter down Main Street, the horses and their riders. A glorious sun presided over them, casting short shadows on the concrete road below. At the hour of noon the downtown was nearly deserted, all occupants having returned inside for catnaps or lunch. No face lingering on the sidewalk was familiar to Jas Dumes. The town drifted behind them without a voice, as a silent parade when only the sound of buzzing flies, the clopping of horse hooves and the occasional rustle of garbage in the street was all that could be heard. They passed the ramshackle buildings on the outskirts of the town, and even in the powerful sun the insides were nests for invisible nocturnal creatures, arachnids and desert rats. The straggling end of Glenview faded away behind them, and all that was left was the open field of the elevated desert. It was a strange land, lush only in dry dirt, and the number of cattle easily outnumbered the humans. The rain last night had done the arid countryside very little good. Any slight breeze brought with it the top layer of earthly grime. It settled in a fine film of grit on anything the wind touched, a pollen of dirt.  
Zeta casted a sidelong peer at Ro. She was looking out to her right, away from him, to the gently brushed rangeland and occasional butte or dip in the formation, like an elf's mountain. "Ro," he said and she flipped around, her hair sweeping back as she did so. "I'm proud of you."  
"What'd I do?"  
"You were very--" he tried to think of the right word, "sweet to Mrs. Gwennie."  
"Was I?" She lofted an eyebrow to doubt him. But he would not take the bait, he rarely did, because he did not often understand she meant to imply a harmless argumentativeness.   
Jas just watched Ro and Zeta, in contemplations of his own as to Ro's behavior that afternoon. She had been sweet, at times even verging on polite and shy. Mrs. Gwennie had that affect on people. "Hey, Zee?"  
Zeta lifted his head over his shoulder to see Jas's eyes hidden behind dark glasses.  
"Who is Dr. Selig?"  
"My creator," Zeta answered and immediately turned back around. He wanted to dismiss the topic.   
Jas, however, didn't relent. He had the youthful mind that benefited from others' obstinacy from the ability to remain in sustained curiosity. "Do you really think Mrs. Gwennie was telling the truth, that she does know someone from Cryobin?"  
"I think she was, yes. People do not lie about Cryobin."  
Ro threw in coolly: "Cryobin wouldn't stand for it."  
She furrowed her brow and shot a look at Jas as if to disable his questions. Jas cowered in the saddle. He hadn't meant to be so nosy, but Ro supposed he could not help it. She and Zeta did made for quite the freak show, really, and she had to look at their existence from an outside viewpoint. She knew she'd be curious if a girl and a synthoid showed up, who appeared to be searching for someone they couldn't find, who they thought might be dead. Ro twitched her lip and fought off the image that she and Zeta were always sinking deeper into dangerous waters they should no longer probe. Now, however, it wasn't up to them.  
"Ro," Zeta began. His train of thought had not been far from the same track as Ro's.  
"What?" Ro shifted the reins a little, liking the feel of the pliable leather sitting in her hands and the tickle of Tippen's long wiry mane on the tips of her fingers.  
"It seems I remember you saying how you don't believe in fate."  
Ro grunted. Her shoulders lifted. "So?"  
"Well," Zeta watched her, in his best speculation mode, "what do you think now? Do you still disbelieve fate, after all this?"  
"Zee," she said as she sighed, "if that's fate than fate is pretty fickle, and fate is not for me. Real fate, any good and decent fate, would've let me find relatives in Mrs. Gwennie's pictures. Real fate wouldn't keep letting you down."  
"That's not fate." Zeta finally found something to argue. "That's just good luck. You can't conveniently interchange the two whenever you feel."  
"Oh?" Ro responded, now rising to the challenge. She liked this part of Zee, the side that pried into the human minds with almost a callousness. "I still think that life is what you make of it. I don't think that everything's made up and I have no say in anything."  
"Of course you have say. But it's the decisions you make that pedestal you to fate."  
Ro snickered and color rose in her cheeks. Jas noticed while wondering if this was typical behavior between Ro and Zeta. He'd never seen it, not in the day he'd known them. He felt uncomfortable. "Come on, you two. Knock it off. I'll show you the short cut home across the fields." He tugged sharply at Presto's reins, dipped in the saddle so the horse stepped to the right.   
"He knows I don't mean it, Jas," Ro provided. She felt no guilt for goading Zee along. As she met Zeta's eyes, he broke out into a smile, naïve, credulous and forgiving. "See, he forgives me. Must be all that compassion." Ro looked away from Zee, tapped the reins so Tippen followed Presto off the road and into the empty land. She'd said the last words in fervent derision, and hadn't really meant to. But she could not apologize without explanation, and that was something she could not do; it was too embarrassing, even for Ro. She rode on, allowing Zee and Jasper to take a long lead. Now that they were on their way back to the Dumes', she and Zeta had to think of a way to get out of town, a way that wouldn't evoke the NSA to hunt them down and tear the town to shreds looking for them. But somehow they always knew. How did they do it?  
A buzzing through the air began, just as she was thinking those last few words. She recognized that noise. It wasn't a bug, a bird, an animal or anything natural. It was the sound of a cruiser ship. "Like the kind the NSA has," Ro thought to herself. She looked up to find that Zeta had already stopped his horse, and was looking to the sky, trying to detect the source of the familiar hum. Then he stared at Ro a moment, giving that look that melted defenses, that "I'm so sorry I did this to you" look. He wasn't to blame. She told him, over the growing noise of the ship, "They're after me, too, Zee. It isn't just you they want."   
But what Zeta knew though he did not verbalize was how the NSA would be sated capturing only him, and letting Ro go.  
Jas's horse pranced, and Jas himself would've pranced if he wasn't confided to the saddle. "What do we do?" he asked, expecting an answer from one.   
Zeta scanned about, his desperation for escape apparent. But there was nothing. They were out in the middle of nowhere, in rangeland. His mind abruptly flashed in photographic memories stored from three days earlier, when he and Ro had been walking at night in the woods, then in the corn. And he thought about how far away that corn seemed, how far away the woods were, and wished there was something, anything, like that close, when Ro needed it and he needed it for Ro. Zeta observed Jas, then Ro, when he said, "Race you home." He quickly commanded the horse into a gallop, and the other two were faced with no choice but to follow, allowing their horses to break into the same fast step.   
They were separated, the three of them, by a great distance, especially the nearer the cruiser came. The droning of the hovership scared the horses nearly senseless, and they were feeling the panic of their riders as well. Jas was close enough to Ro to say one thing. And over the pounding of the twelve hooves against the earth, Ro could barely understand him. "You've really got to do something with Zee's sense of humor, Ro!" She waved a bothered arm at him, and rose up higher in the saddle. At the same time she tried to look over her shoulder to see how close the cruiser was, behind the cloud of dust that rose from Tippen's speedy legs. The ship was some fifty feet behind her, gaining faster than the horses could run. It zoomed over the top of them, a shadow it cast fell across them, like a creature dark and alive that would soon swallow them whole.   
The hovership flew around a second time, then a third, and at each turn it made Zeta would look up and observe the strange craft, waiting, scanning. At the fourth pass, Zeta slowed down his horse. Jas stopped beside the synthoid, his expression frantic.  
"Wait, Zee," Jas said, clearly apologetic and confused, "that's just--just my uncle."  
Ro trotted to him in time to hear his declaration. She tried to keep in and quietly destroy her anger. "Just your uncle?" She filled the question with enough annoyance and distaste that it satisfied her.  
"Yes," Jas said. "I didn't know he was coming in town. Well, he never tells us when he is." He tried to laugh over the uncomfortable tension between himself and Ro, but it failed when she was so clearly upset. Zeta was not as calm as usual, either. "I didn't know it was him when I first saw the ship, too. I swear! But the third time he passed over, I checked the tail number, and that's his ship. I'm sorry. I should've thought of it sooner, but you guys were so wrapped up in--I don't know." He slapped the reins and Presto wandered off. "Don't worry," he told his friends over his shoulder, "my uncle isn't dangerous."  
"Well, thanks for that little bit of comfort," Ro shouted as the kid rode on ahead. She waited with Zeta. "You okay, Zee?"  
Zeta nodded. "I was really afraid."  
"I know. I was afraid, too."  
The mere idea that he could possibly fail to protect Ro disturbed Zeta. "Out here in the middle of nowhere, where would you go?"  
"I would've found a way. I'm very resourceful. They won't take me without a kick and a scream, and, maybe, an explosion." The attempt at humor was unable to alter Zeta from his present morose manner. He would be more content when they were finally able to leave Glenview, and move on to some other town, again strangers, belonging to no one but each other. It seemed to be the only way.   
They began to canter toward the farm, where the hovership had landed. Not far from the barn jovial voices could be heard among the Dumes' and their new guest. Zeta was fearful of meeting someone else, especially after the scare he'd just had, and his worry was more for Ro than for himself. But Ro was not afraid; she marched right up to the grounded cruiser, where the Dumes' had gathered to greet Warren's elder brother. Zeta followed her steadily, and would not allow Ro to be more than ten feet from him. At ten feet he could do a lot of good to protect her, but still stay out of her way. Anything further than ten feet was not enough time for reaction if something should suddenly happen, and any closer than ten feet Ro would feel he was perched like a fly that wouldn't leave her alone.   
Jas greeted his uncle with a hug. His uncle swatted Jas atop his head, swirling around the teen's thick, unruly hair.  
"I heard you had an adventure, young man."  
Jas flushed. "I did, but it was a good adventure, even if it means I have to spend the rest of my childhood grounded. Uncle, these are my friends, Ro and Zee Smith."  
The powerful, virile middle-aged uncle tilted toward Ro for the premiere handshake. "I'm Alistair Murphy Dumes, Miss Ro. A great pleasure to meet you." She was a cute thing, but with an serrated edge that was so visible it made him take a harder look. There was a turbulence in her, a fire. In a way, she reminded him of his own daughter, who was more spoiled than plain headstrong. "You're a sprightly thing, aren't you?"  
"I have more sprightly moments than you can imagine, more than Tinkerbell," Ro answered, and shook his hand. She didn't know what to think of Alistair Dumes, but she wanted to like him. There was something so engaging in his attitude. He was like a caricature of himself, and knew it, then played up to it even more. "This is Zee," she said, "my cousin."  
Alistair greeted Zeta in the same manner as Ro, but omitted the sprite comment and added in its place: "You're not a farming man, I wager."  
Julie answered for her guests. "They're scientists taking a holiday." She felt the need to cover for them, and offer an explanation when no other would do. "They found Jas out in the woods and brought him back home."  
"I heard. Well," the chipper uncle said to Zee and Ro, "the Dumes' are obliged to you, and I am, too." He brushed back his silver hair, and smoothed out with his fingers a bushy mustache in the same shade of gray. "I saw Jas out in the field with a couple people on horses. Must've been you two. You're pretty good riders for not being from the country. Warren was telling me that you're--" he paused to recollect the story, "following the trail of your ancestors?"  
Zeta recalled the story and filled in the details Warren had unintentionally left out. The synthoid was less on his guard now that he was back at the farm and assured that Alistair Dumes was no threat to the safety of himself or Ro. While the Dumes' traveled on ahead, to lift themselves into the house, Zeta halted his steps for a moment, a thought in his mind developing.  
"Zee?" Ro asked, having spotted the robots peculiar, dead stop, and he stood so still that it mesmerized her. "What's your problem?"  
"Ro," he said, tilting his head at a slight angle, the human inexperience again apparent, "I'm starting to understand how frightening it really is."  
"What?"  
"Running," he said. "Running for your life."  
Ro rolled her eyes and grabbed his hand. "You're too serious! Lighten up! It was just a hovership belonging to a nice guy who has a lot of money to spend on luxury transportation. Don't read so much into it."  
Zee was skeptical.  
"Trust me on this one, okay? Besides, if I'm nice enough, maybe he'll take us with him when he leaves."  
He remained unaffected.  
"Well," Ro said, trying to find another way, "you're just upset with yourself because you made a mistake. Ha!" she interjected, and pointed at him, a snicker tickling her lips and mockery skipping in her eyes. "Admit it. You made a mistake!" She laughed again, throwing herself into the rare moment of humor.  
Zeta forced a smile, but it came out listless and wrong. His best smiles were the smiles he didn't know he was making. "I gladly admit that I made a mistake."  
Ro danced, twirling around and lifting her arms loosely. She was chanting in rhythm with the moves she made: "Zee made a mistake! Zee made a mistake!"  
He smacked her on the back of the head, lifting her corn-yellow hair wildly out of place, as he stepped by to enter the house, leaving Ro to her tribal moves. But once she had annoyed him beyond his threshold, or he had just become bored with her, she stopped the harassment and followed him. Julie and Boom-Boom were in the foyer to greet her. Boom-Boom was recovering from the obligatory growl he'd given Zeta, and met Ro with a wet nose and a lick to her hand that she brushed away on her pants leg. Julie greeted her as warmly, without the wet nose, and asked what happened with batty Mrs. Gwennie. Ro told her that nothing really had, and soon she and Zeta would be leaving Glenview. Julie was miffed at her own feeling of strong disappointment when she heard the news. But, somehow, she understood. Ro and Zeta were not stray animals that one just takes in, cleans up, loves, adopts. They were on a quest, some kind of quest, and running from a government that would not let them be.   
"Ro," Julie said, and stopped before entering the family room from the kitchen, where they'd been talking privately, like cousins or sisters, "I want to give you something. Here, follow me."  
They ended up in Julie's pink and white room, the epitome of sixteen-year-old femininity. Ro watched the fish in the tank, as they had a calming presence to even the most rigid and anxious eye. Ro leaned back from the redolent aerated fish water when Julie came to her side. Her hand was full of money.  
"No," Ro said, even without a second thought. "I won't take it. And you know Zee wouldn't approve."  
"I think Zee would approve of anything that would help you, Ro. Take it, and don't ever think about it again. What do I need it for? It's just been collecting dust." Julie shrugged. Ro wasn't yet convinced, but Julie knew she was closing in on the small victory. "So I'll live without one more designer outfit for the school year. So what? I'm happier giving it to you and Zee. It's not that much, just a little. It should be enough to get you out of town."  
Ro finally gave in. Trying to find a way to argue with Julie would take more time than it was worth. And what Julie said was true, about Zeta doing whatever he could to help. Ro just didn't want to believe it was true when it came to taking money from friends. "Do you think your uncle would give us a lift? When's he leaving?"  
"Oh!" Julie's eyes brightened. "Now there's an idea, Ro! He'll probably leave after supper. He lives in Seapoint now, after the government bought back his tobacco land, and he comes by for a visit every now and then. He can take you back to Seapoint with him, I'm sure. You could catch an EHT from there to just about anywhere." While she spoke, Julie busied herself around her room, to fetch a few more things for Ro, including the clothes she had borrowed the other night, no longer soiled with mud but clean and fresh. She handed the black jacket to Ro. "It's going to get cold soon, so you'll need this."  
Ro accepted it and cradled the jacket over hear arm.  
"Will you be able to stay in touch, let me know what happens?" Julie already suspected the answer, and was not surprised when Ro's reply came, delivered in a tender way.  
"No, it's better if we don't. That way--they can't trace us as easily. And they'll leave you alone. They will if they don't find you out."  
"I think you must be very brave, Ro." Julie had said it in sentimentality. She meant it. She'd never met a real hero before, someone battling against the forces of good and evil as blatantly and forcefully as Ro and Zeta. At least, those were the types of images she'd placed in her mind. And, in a way, perhaps truth was found there.   
They'd been edging toward the door to join the others downstairs, but Ro stopped and looked Julie square in her wholesome brown irises, and deep into the black pupils. "You know, I'm one of those people who always thought that there was a very fine line between bravery and plain stupidity. Some days you're the knight, and other days you're the knave."  
Julie giggled, and Ro's mentality lifted from the pessimistic to the hopeful. She returned to being the knight. The costume of the knave was left behind. She thought it didn't become her very well, anyway. 

--

Note

Seapoint  
Otherwise known as Seattle. Except smaller and more south. 


	15. Fifteen

15)

The rest of the afternoon and into the evening Zeta spent in discussion with Jas, Alistair and Warren, about everything from the shaky democracy to what kind of college would be best for Jas in the future. Jas supposed he would be better off going out east, where the most specialized and extensive robotic research and development centers were located. On this point Zeta disagreed, and Ro, who listened near the doorway, was glad. If he hadn't attempted to dissuade Jas, she would have happily interceded her own opinion.  
"Don't do that, Jas," Zeta offered, in his less-than-intimidating fashion.  
"Why not? Don't you think that if I want to do the most I can in robotic development, I should go to the best places?"  
"Yes," agreed the synthoid, but only to a small degree. "Don't go until you're finished with school. Stay out here, close to your family, for as long as you can. When you're older you'll be glad you did. Stay out here forever, if you'd wish, and start your own West Country research center."  
Ro spoke up, adding her own little cherry to Zeta's maunder sundae. "Yeah, Jas. Let me tell you that not everything that's gold in this world is located within two-hundred miles of Gotham City. In fact, it's kinda the opposite. Gotham City is fool's gold. It's not a paradise. It's a soulless pit." Ro couldn't let one humorous comment slip without being said. "Why do you think Batman has such a hard time?"  
A muted chuckling rose to fill the room. Ro's sense of humor surprised people. But it had been enough to convince Jas that perhaps East Country was not as grand as he'd been told or had imagined. And, perhaps, with strategic planning, saving, investing, he would be able to start his own research center later in life. He reiterated to his family what he'd told Zeta earlier, how he wished there was a way for androids and synthoids to live independently. It tumbled the conversation into politics, and Warren's ironic statement that synthoids didn't even exist. Ro groaned, annoyed with anything political, governmental, since it too often reminded her of the situation she was stuck in. Though she knew things could've been worse, she didn't know how little worse it could get. Government work was the sort of topic, however, where Zeta shined. His intelligence and understanding of internal government was put to extremely good use. Warren and Alistair found Zee Smith's textured insights interesting, though some of his ideas were fanciful drivel. And Alistair even said Zee should consider going into government work.  
"I was in government work for a brief period of time," replied Zeta, then shook his head negatively. "It didn't work out for the government or for me. Now we try to keep as far apart as possible."  
Not long after, Ro found herself out-of-doors again, in order to help Julie with barn chores while Jas, more involved in the conversation than either of the girls, stayed inside to chat. Julie showed Ro how to brush down the horses, to rid their coats of the tan desert dust and make it shine. Julie prepared hay in the stalls, to keep the horses fed for the night. As the sun was getting lower in the west, its light changing from yellow to dark gold and finally to crisp orange, the air temperature dropped considerably. The girls folded their arms to ward off a chill as they roamed their way back to the house. Lights were burning in a welcoming way through the kitchen and family room windows. The smell of food permeated the air, and Ro enjoyed the thought of another grand Dumes family feast, filled with old-fashioned food prepared the old-fashioned way. And there was the joyful, homespun sound of an old piano as someone played a ragtime tune, pounding the ivories while voices of the men sang.  
"That's my uncle for ya," Julie said, unable to hold back the grin that the music brought to her curved lips. "He's the one who gave us that old piano in the first place. His new home on the coast is too modern for such an antique thing. So we got it for our antique house. Every time he visits he plays and we sing. It's sort of like tradition."  
"I like your traditions," Ro told her in honesty. "I like your life, Julie. You have a good life."  
They headed through the laundry room and into the oven-warmed kitchen, but stopped under the door frame. Julie set her fingers to Ro's bony wrist. "It's not always so fun. It's lonely out here. But I do love my family. Maybe someday you can have this, too."  
Tess Dumes busied herself with chopping potatoes, but overheard the girls talking. It was Ro who spoke next.  
"It's a nice life. Really, it is. And however envious I think I am, I don't know if it's really something I would enjoy. In my blood now is wanderlust, and I could never be satisfied if I stayed somewhere too long. I've tried. The only thing I can hope for now is that the running never stops."  
The look that Julie gave Ro was indecipherable, but the smile was genuine, holding both sympathy and friendliness. 

"'In days when wits were fresh and clear . . .   
Before this strange disease of modern life,  
With its sick hurry, its divided aims. . . .'"

Julie, pleased with herself, stepped to the kitchen. "Matthew Arnold wrote that."  
Tess addressed her daughter, a momentary halt in the dicing. "Julie, go fetch Mr. Smith for a moment, would you? Ro can help me chop a potato."  
Julie did as she was told, but silently hoped her mother wouldn't say anything to hurt Ro or Zee. Ro went to the counter and took up paring knife and damp, washed potato. She sliced it wrong, and Tess laughed at her ignorance of proper vegetable preparation, and even Ro found she was hopeless when it came to cooking. When Zee appeared, Tess and Ro observed him, and he stood there calmly, expecting nothing.   
"Your brother-in-law is a very interesting man, Mrs. Tess," he said. "You must have a lot of fun when he visits."  
"Yes, we do. Alistair is very gregarious, and pays us a lot of attention, though he is so important up north, and we're nothing but ranchers. Anyway," she said, and wiped the potato starch from her hands with a dishtowel, "I wanted to talk to both of you for a moment." But, before she did, she stepped to the obligatory junk stand, where they plopped useless things to be out of the way, and fished out from her handbag a small article, but Ro could not tell what it was. Tess handed it over to Zeta, and he accepted it gingerly, now wanting an explanation. Tess provided one promptly. "Take it, please? A fifty dollar credcard will do you a lot of good. It'll get you where you need to go."  
Ro looked at Zeta, and Zeta returned the same confused look. Ro tried to change Tess's mind, but she wouldn't hear of it.  
"You have to take it. I insist," Tess declared in a tone that would not be argued. "Besides, it's mostly for you, isn't it, Ro? Zee has no use for it, since he has so few needs. It must be cheap to travel when you're a robot."  
Alarmed, Ro stared at Tess.  
"I figured it out," Tess said. "But Warren doesn't know, and I promise I won't tell him. I assume the kids know, otherwise they wouldn't stare at you with this--this dreamy light in their eyes." Tess gave her brightness to Zee. "You do put a lot of wonderment in people, myself included."  
"We thank you, Mrs. Tess," a grateful Zeta said. He pocketed the credcard in a brief, completely inhuman movement, so stiffly it was made, as if Zeta stepped back in time, to his birth as a synthoid. But he changed abruptly, his movements again fluid as he gave a chivalrous bow and left the kitchen.  
"No doubt," Ro started as she watched the tail of Zeta's coat flutter while he disappeared down the hall, "you see why it is we can't stay with people for very long. They always find out, if they search hard enough."  
Tess had nothing to say to that, but she felt it was true. Her remark was of a different nature. "Your dedication to each other is obvious. The extraordinary manner of it is what makes you stand out."  
Ro took this in stride, though it was something if said by a different person, perhaps, she would've found offensive. "We fight for the same things, that's all. There's fellowship between those who do. Some things can't be broken. Most things can."  
The old piano in the family room melodically started up again, and the gleeful voices accompanying it were blessed with Julie's sing-song soprano. She sang sweetly, like a deep-sea lorelei. Tess returned to her vegetable dicing, and Ro wandered into the family room, to watch the family gathered around the piano, where Zee was welcomed, and he sang the best he could. Julie brought Ro to her side, instructing her to sing along. Ro's voice was made more sweet by the mix with Julie Dumes's.  
It was during supper when Alistair declared he'd be happy to take the Smiths as far as Seapoint, if they wished. "You could take the train from there. I'll even see to it that you get on the next available departure to wherever you need to be." The offer came after his niece's suggestion. Not a true suggestion, perhaps it was more like a plea. Julie was old enough to know how to get what she wanted from her family but young enough to be exceedingly cosseted. Alistair was eager to grant her wish, as well as that of Zee and Ro. Along with them he planned the hour of their departure, and it arrived swiftly, almost before they were aware of it. The time was upon them when they gathered in the lovely foyer of the grand home, preparing their farewells. Boom-Boom, who always had an angry growl ready for Zeta, refrained from the expected, choosing instead to ignore the synthoid's metal presence, and only Ro was allowed to wish the lazy fat dog a goodbye. Tess Dumes's expression held something mysterious, as though she was full of profound pride. Jas was wounded by the departure of his saviors, but he also felt an inkling of gratification, as though someday he would not fail to help Zeta as Zeta had helped him. He would do it for all the Zetas of the world who longed for a bit of freedom. The enigmatic goodbye Julie spoke puzzled her guests, and left them to muse over the quoted words for a while.  
"'Eloquent, the smiles that win, the tints that glow, but tell of days in goodness spent, and a mind at peace.'" She took Zeta's human hand, the hologram of it, perfectly shaped and almost delicate, and squeezed his fingers as he pressed hers in return. "Byron wrote that," she said, looking him in the eye. An implication was there, a vast one, full of many complexities, which Zeta hadn't the notion to delineate.  
Zeta petted Julie along the side of her head, where her brown hair fell past her elfin ears. He was amused by the quote, by the bringing up of Bryon. "Goodbye, Julie. And thank you." He permitted her to kiss his cheek, and felt the gentle, childlike pressure of the teen's lips.   
Ro's farewell to Julie was subdued. Although it had been Jas they saved, Jas that had brought her and Zeta to the Dumes farm, it was Julie that Ro wound up feeling closest to. This realization was not an immediate one, nor a sentimental one that just happened at the end of their life together. But it had been something Ro had gradually pondered, and had ever since she knew who Julie reminded her of. Ro had felt jealousy and anger toward Julie Dumes, mostly unfounded, but Ro knew her feelings were not easily disregarded. And there had been the more frequent moments of sisterly comfort, an unspeakable bond Ro fancied didn't exist between a man and a woman, only between two women. Instead of saying something heartfelt and mushy, Ro just hugged Julie tightly, afraid to let the sincere attachment snap. "I'll miss you, Jule," Ro said, then finally let go. She looked at each Dumes face in eagerness, her air and expression fully betraying her sadness. She huffed and stepped out of the foyer, no longer allowing the humans to see how much their lives had affected her. The briefness of their time together released and further solidified Ro's old adage that nothing good goes on forever, that something which made life so perfect would only turn imperfect, like glittering diamonds transformed to dull glass.  
Despite having four seats on Alistair's cruiser to choose from, Zeta chose instead to sit beside Ro. She had set her forehead to the window, and in distant longing, she looked to the desert ranch land. The horses were in the paddock beside the barn, grazing, their tails twitching at flies and dust. She glanced at Zee when he sat down.  
"What was the stuff about Byron?" she asked him, keeping her upper lip stiff against the waterfall of emotions inside her.  
"She likes Byron," he replied. "Well, I like Byron."  
Alistair gathered himself comfortably behind the controls, locked himself in and fiddled with buttons and switches. The jets started in a sonorous droning, like a thousand bees with muted wings, and the ship lifted a foot off the ground immediately. The landing gear was disengaged. Alistair gave his riders an observance just behind his seat. "You two ready? Last chance to change your mind."  
"Go ahead, Mr. Alistair," Zeta said, giving the pilot the okay to take off and leave behind Glenview and the Dumes ranch, located in the northern tip of Oregon's ghostly High Desert.   
The further the cruiser lifted from the earth, first straight up then northward, the more forlorn Ro became. And she was trying her best to pretend she didn't care. In a couple of weeks, maybe days, she knew she wouldn't as much as she did then. But no matter how hard she tried to hide what discomfort she was feeling, Zeta knew. He slid his arm over her shoulders, and she curled against him, content with his uncanny ability to bring her comfort during rare times of distress.  
"You have every right to be upset, Ro," he said to her. "You just go ahead and be as sad as you want. I won't tell anyone."  
"Who would you tell? Agent Bennett? Or West?" Ro laughed despite herself. "They wouldn't believe you. I haven't got the reputation with those two as being slightly emotional. They'd probably think you were talking about some other girl."   
"Maybe someday you can come back."  
"It's not that I want to, or that I think I would want to. That's not why I'm feeling this way."  
"Why are you feeling this way?"  
"I think I've misjudged some people, when I didn't mean to. It's Julie," Ro stated quietly, almost in a whisper. But Zeta's acute hearing picked her words out clearly, though they were drowned in the noise of the engines.  
"What about Julie?"  
"She reminds me of someone. Like the Seven Sisters. Do you remember when we first got here, and I said that I liked the story of the Seven Sisters?"  
"Yes. You said it was because you liked the idea of being turned into a star."  
"And I do like that idea, in a way. But I like hearing about the sisters. It reminds me of--of Julie, and--and---" Ro sighed, closed her eyes tightly, to escape the barb of regret, "Tiff! Stupid, spoiled and annoyingly perfect Tiffany Morgan!"  
Zeta rubbed Ro's shoulders to show he understood the inner conflict. For a while, he allowed his thoughts freedom characteristic of a human. It was a minute or so before he spoke again. "Electre was the most famous of the Seven Sisters. She, like five of her sisters, married a god. She married the god of all gods; she married Zeus. They had a son named Dardanus. When he was older, Dardanus gained much power, and he formed a city that he named Troy. But Electre, so saddened by her son's loss of his city, left her place in the heavens. She chose to become a comet, so she would not be forced to see what Troy had become after the fall. Some dubbed her the lost Pleiad. The one who wanders, who is afraid to look again at something she knows will hurt her."  
If Zeta meant to implicate a deep-seeded fear inside Ro by telling that particular story at that particular time, he succeeded. Ro knew what he implied so stealthily. But days ago she'd already made up her own mind, regardless of his help or his telling of myths.  
"We're going back," she said then, her voice throaty from strain.  
"Where?"  
"To Hillsburg, Zee. The first train we can get to the East Country, we're going to be on it. I'd already decided, but I hadn't told you yet."  
"It could be dangerous, Ro."  
"It's what I have to do. I really want to see her again. Just to see how she is. It might be better if I went alone, less danger for you."  
The idea repulsed Zee. "You're not going anywhere alone."  
Ro knew he'd say something similar to that, and was relieved he'd saved her from disappointment. "Have it your way. But don't say I didn't warn you."  
"I won't have to," Zeta said, "because if something happens to us it'll be my fault."  
"I think it's safe to say how ridiculous that statement is." Ro kept her eyes closed, her brain tired mush. Moving vehicles always made her sleepy, as long as she wasn't being followed by an angry NSA militia. "We're a unit, Zee. If one of us fails it's because the other forgot to do something."  
Zee liked this idea better than his of complete dilapidation in the precise things he'd been built for. Still, he knew what a risk it was to return to Hillsburg, where the Morgans, Ro's foster family, lived. It was the entire idea of going to Hillsburg that he disliked. Not only were there bad memories lodged there for him, but for Ro as well. But he understood why she felt the inclination to return to the past. Sometimes the past was a necessary ally to feed hope to a reluctant future.   
"Tell me about one of the other sisters. That one with the pretty name. What is it?" Ro yawned sleepily. "Merope, I think. What was her life like? Did she beat the crap out of any of her sisters?"  
"Nothing like that," he assured, probably to Ro's displeasure. Zeta, however, was not in the mood to discuss the life of Merope, the dimmed Pleiad. "I'll tell you about her another time. You sleep now. It'll be another forty minutes before we reach Seapoint." 

--

Notes

"'In days when wits were fresh and clear . . . '"  
Matthew Arnold, _The Scholar-Gypsy_

'Eloquent, the smiles that win, the tints that glow, but tell of days in goodness spent, and a mind at peace.'  
Lord Byron, _She Walks In Beauty_


	16. Sixteen

Part Two  
16) 

Alistair and Zeta discussed the most efficient means of leaving Seapoint, even before the cruiser landed. The gregariousness and sincere hospitality of Alistair Dumes made it extremely difficult for Zeta to decline the courtesy offer to stay the night at Dumes's luxurious sea-side condo. And, not long after she awoke, Ro found out that Zeta had made the plans without consulting her. She whacked him on the arm angrily for taking away her chance at a hot bath. But once Zeta explained his reasons, and Ro's temper expired, she saw it was best that they catch the EHT redeye to the east coast.   
Ro couldn't believe how fast the day had slipped behind her, into unmarked, bland history. The sun had set by the time the cruiser hovered over Seapoint, flying at a comfortable altitude of ten-thousand feet. It gave Ro and Zeta a chance to experience first-hand Seapoint's famous coastal sky-line, displayed in speckled city lights. The western horizon was as beautiful, adding to the image as a whole, sprayed with vibrant hues typical of a sunset: navy, azure, purple, orange, yellow, and a line of milky-gray that indicated the ocean, which seemed to wave on and on into infinity. The wanderers nearly regretted they'd be spending no time in Seapoint. It looked inviting, like a place a mind could get lost in for a few days, only to find it again in the turbulent face of the sea.  
Alistair parked his cruiser at his rented hanger at Seapoint's commercial airfield. A car with a personal driver was waiting for him and his guests. As Ro neared it, Alistair a few steps ahead, she whispered to Zeta. "What do you suppose this guy does for a living? He lives a high life." Zeta refrained from a full response as they neared the expensive vehicle, but only managed to say what Ro already knew, that the government had bought Dumes's tobacco fields years ago, when tobacco farming was no longer lucrative to the global economy and production was banned. Alistair obviously had found a life beyond tobacco farming, and a very wealthy one. Ro and Zeta sunk into the extended back of the faux leather interior, Alistair sitting across from them, already pouring himself a cocktail. The chauffeur leaned and whispered inaudibly into his master's ear, and Alistair nodded. The chauffeur took his seat in the front, then the car started for the downtown Seapoint station. Alistair let out a sigh, cherishing his drink. He was relieved he no longer had to pilot. He took a sip and leaned back, relaxed, observing his guests in a wide smile.  
"I like to fly," he explained to them, since he knew they'd be wondering. "It soothes me. Plus the cruisers are so much fun to pilot. The steering is so touchy, like a sports car. But you're too young to remember the great sports cars, back when they still had combustion engines and guzzled precious fossil fuel. I suppose it's a good thing our society stopped relying so much on fuel. It started too many wars, didn't it? You get a sour-faced Republican in office with ties to oil tycoons, and you get an invasion of a country with a lot of oil." He snickered at his own bitter rhetoric, then looked at Ro's large eyes, dimmed in the night. "Sure you wouldn't like a soda or something, fair sprite?"  
Ro took advantage of his kindness and the length of the trip to the train station, and had him pour for her a club soda with ice and a lemon wedge. There were no cherries to be had. "I don't think I'd be a sprite," she said to Alistair. He observed her blankly, wondering why any girl would deny being something energetic and youthful. "I'd probably be something more intangible, like an oread or one of the Pleiades."  
"An oread, huh?" Alistair winked, amused. "Then I will always think of you as the oread I once helped, and who once helped my nephew. If you two are ever in Seapoint again, look me up. I work on the seventh floor of the Rÿyennas building, at the corner of Harlton and Fifteenth Street."  
"And what exactly is Rÿyennas?" Ro couldn't help but ask, her curiosity was far too piqued at the mention of the building's foreign name. It only sounded vaguely familiar to her. She kept her nose far from the greedy proceedings of the corporate world.  
Alistair was not offended by the inquiry, as he had nothing to hide. His actions were far from criminal, and he was on the legitimate side of business now, as far as anyone knew. "Rÿyennas is a digital press association, mostly photography, though we do the occasional breaking news story. We work a lot with surveillance modifications, image capturing--that sort of thing." He failed to see how it would interest a girl like Ro. She was certainly smart, but struck Alistair as being fairly shallow in an endearing, unobjectionable way, like his niece Julie and his own daughter. It was a teenage-girl archetype, and he stuck to it firmly. "It is better than overseeing tobacco crops. The government provided me with this Rÿyennas job after they bought out my plantation. Of course, they had to; they're the ones who outlawed tobacco in the first place. We no longer have nicotine available to us, or the chemicals in cigarettes to give us cancer in our lungs, yet we still have alcohol, barrels and seas of alcohol, to poison our delicate human structure. Ironic, don't you think?"  
Ro looked at Zeta, and his image was barely perceptible in the dark of the car. The occasional flash of a streetlamp or neon sign, its power limited by the heavy tint of the limousine's windows, would make visible his features but only for a mere second. She was again thankful for the synthoid's presence, as she found herself oddly chilled by Alistair Dumes. Although she was sure he was a good sort of person, and he'd probably never had an inkling to kill anyone, she felt that maybe he hadn't always been such an upstanding citizen. Ro knew a seedy and questionable past when she saw one.  
Unable to wait for the chauffeur to attend him, Zeta hurried out from vehicle, sensing Ro's apprehension, the moment they came to a stop in front of the entrance to the sprawling EHT Seapoint station. The electronic hover train was a popular mode of getting quickly from one place to another, no matter what local chapter of the mafia ran it, and even late at night on a Monday, the station maintained a steady flow of travelers. Zeta escorted Ro from the backseat, and took her elbow as not to lose track of her among the crowded passenger drop-off area.   
"You kids hurry along," Alistair said to them, still inside the car. The overhead border lights shone upon his face, high-lighting oil on the bulk of his nose, and his eyes were blackened by the protruding brow bone.   
"Thank you," Ro started, "for your help, Mr. Dumes. We appreciate it."  
"It wasn't a problem," he responded. "You shouldn't have any trouble getting a seat on the redeye to Maryland. I had my assistant call ahead to save two tickets. Pick them up at the window."  
Zeta, who was typically so quick with his kindness and consideration, only bowed his thanks. Alistair bowed in return, just a slight bend in the neck, and there was some happy mock in his eyes as he watched Zee Smith. "Goodbye, Mr. Smith. I trust you two will have a safe trip. Well, good luck." The window went up and Alistair disappeared behind the smoky glass. The chauffeur had returned to the wheel, and the car promptly headed down the road, out of sight past a slight angle. Zeta's grip at Ro's elbow tightened so much that she wrenched free.  
"Loosen up, tin man," she said, and rubbed her hurt elbow gently, frowning at Zeta.   
Very much disappointed in himself, he apologized as they headed through the doors of the station. "There's something odd about Mr. Dumes," Zeta confessed in a sleuth's manner. "I don't like him."  
"Do you think we should take the tickets he reserved for us?"  
"Yes, I think we should," Zeta replied. He was busy scanning the people around him for their protection, as if the station was full of enemies and spies. "I don't think he means us any harm. But that doesn't mean I have to like him."  
"It's good to hear of you actually disliking someone, you know. I thought you liked everyone. You're too trusting sometimes, Zee."  
Zeta couldn't reply. The only thing he thought was how he'd rather be too trusting than to care for no one, ever. It was far too often that people were distrusted until it was proved they could be trusted. To Zeta, this was a backward approach to life. People should be trusted and believed in, always, until they displayed some seeable antithesis of character.  
They waded their way through the throng of people, each person merrily moving about his or her own way, in a speed and rudeness that Zeta hadn't missed being in the country. While waiting in the line to pick up their tickets, Zeta spoke to Ro.  
"I do not like Seapoint," he declared. A woman behind him shot the back of his head an angry look, and Ro almost giggled. "It's very beautiful, really, but all of these people seem so heartless and---"  
"They're just too strung out on caffeine. Give them a break. This is the sacred birthplace of cyber cafes like Ground Wire, after all. These people don't know anything but earthquakes, computers and coffee."  
"This was one of the last cities," Zeta went on, as if he hadn't heard the joke, "to take down the surveillance systems in public areas, when the privacy laws were passed twenty years ago. They wouldn't comply."  
"Yes, I remember reading about that," Ro said. "The government had to send in the army to physically take down the cameras and tear out the computer equipment. There were riots and protests everywhere. I wonder why they wouldn't do what they were told?"  
"There was speculation it had something to do with another country's government--secret operations experts who were using the cameras to track international terrorists. It's even thought by some insiders that the riots were supposed to be the start of an underground radical movement to promote Seapoint's becoming its own---"  
"Better shut up, Zee," Ro said, as they were one couple away from the ticket booth, and people around them started to seem a little too interested in their conversation. She and Zeta were supposed to be inconspicuous, and not stand out whenever possible. In the renowned, overused theory of outlaws, they were supposed to blend in and be like everybody else. That was difficult for Ro, who had only been near normal upwards of twelve years ago, so far back she could barely remember. And she wasn't entirely sure she'd ever been normal, because her life never had been. The task of normalcy was impossible for Zeta. Being a synthoid meant he could never be human, but he could be _like_ a human: walk like them, talk like them. But he was too smart, too innocent. It didn't help that he walked with an eager importance and severely, so that men wondered what sort of great business he had to attend. It also didn't help that his chosen hologram made him look tall, distinguished and handsome, which sent young girls and women into sighs and heart flutters whenever he passed. Zeta was eye-catching in spite of himself. The reluctant corner of Ro's mouth lifted a little as she thought about it, and she grabbed Zeta's hand in hers just when they were finally greeted at the ticket window. Almost human, Zeta was. Almost human, but not quite.   
Tickets in hand, they meandered slowly toward the number nine platform. Ro gave a pleased shout when she noticed for what elite car their tickets were for, one of the posh first-class cars near the back of the train, where it was quietest. They had an entire six-seat room to themselves. Heaven it would be for Ro to have an entire couch to herself, where she could stretch out and nap as she chose during the ten-hour, cross-country trek, including the hours they would lose covering four time zones. Zeta would have to find some other way of amusing himself while she catnapped. She was telling him so when he suddenly stopped, and she felt the synthoid's intensity mount to the peak where she always felt frightened herself.  
"Something isn't right, Ro," Zeta told her, then tried to continue his steps pleasantly, as though he was not as aware as he truly was. "Keep walking," he instructed.   
Ro was already on edge, and Zeta's iterations that there was "probably nothing to worry about" didn't help decrease her nerves. But without a sour instance they made it onto the train, to their car, finally to their compartment. Before she stepped in ahead of Zeta, he held her back at the shoulders, inadvertently using his robot strength and lifted her from the ground, almost tossing her out of the private room. "Wait, Ro," he said. "Let me look inside first."  
Watching him in rising consternation, Ro smoothed down her hair with her hands and rolled her eyes. He was being contradictory, like a human. First he was on alert, then said not to worry about it, now he was back to checking under the couch's cushions in search of some hidden weaponry of destruction. Zeta declared the compartment was void of anything detectable, and he used that word, "detectable," and brought Ro inside. She flopped down on the couch, prepared to sleep away the ten travel hours. Zeta remained upward, staring, examining. There was the distant robotic look in his eye. He was not satisfied they were safe. He went to the door, and Ro lifted her head to perceive him when he called her name. "Lock the door. I'm going to be right back. But--lock the door. You'll know it's me."  
Ro did as she was instructed, and slid the lock into place as her tin man left down the hall of the train's long luxury car. She sat at the edge of the couch, her hands under her thighs, tight, afraid and tense. For a moment she looked at the window, covered in a sheer beige curtain, and saw the people in hazy forms parading around like human flies across the platform, some in a hurry, others moving as slow as a tortoise. Ro could not understand how the rest of the world could feel so at peace, and her life, at that moment, seemed so disturbed, even threatened.   
She jumped and felt her nerves grow taut and pricked when a firm knock landed on the door. And she only stared at the sliding lock, for a moment worrying she hadn't locked it at all, but assuring herself in logic that she had. The knock came again, and somehow Ro did know, as Zeta had said, she did know it was not him at the door.   
"Hello?" a female voice called. "Beverage service."  
Still, Ro did not move. She bit her lip when the handle jiggled, the lock keeping its place. Even if it was beverage service, Ro refused to answer. She'd fallen before for some NSA ruse, and wasn't going to let it happen again. Besides, she wasn't thirsty, and cared little for having a beverage. Let the attendant move on to the next room. She wanted Zeta to return. Why hadn't he come back yet? How long had he been gone? A few minutes at the most, she rationalized with herself. She grabbed a throw pillow from the couch and held it across her chest tightly, as if to ward off charged thoughts of fear. Her nails dug into the chenille fabric, most especially when a soft knock came upon the door pane. Ro hesitated, then tossed the pillow aside. Before she rose from the couch, however, she waited an extra ten seconds, as someone from the outside called.   
"Twinkle, twinkle little star."  
Ro couldn't help but laugh, even at her own seemingly unfounded fear. It was Zeta at the door, singing the child's tune. She unlatched the door and slid it aside. Zeta caught the look of both amusement and fear in Ro's expression. He analyzed her completely as he edged her back.   
"Did something happen?"  
"Someone knocked on the door. I think it was just the attendant with beverages. I never heard that before. Must be a luxury car thing, huh?"  
Zeta opened the door again to examine the hallway. There was no beverage girl in sight. The hallway was empty the length of the car, just like when he'd arrived. He looked back at Ro from where he was. She slouched into the couch and grabbed the pillow.  
"Don't go," she said. "I'd rather you didn't. It isn't worth it." She was relieved when he had locked the door and sat across from her, on his own couch. "Did you find anything?"  
"Nothing. There are only a few other rooms occupied in this car."  
Ro leaned forward, forearms on her knees, flipping the pillow nervously between her clammy hands.   
Zeta rubbed the corner of his holographic eye, a purely human gesture. He did things like that occasionally, freakishly rare movements, as though he shared his robotic brain with a human one, and sometimes the human one got the better of him. It wasn't the case, however, not entirely. He pretended to act human, and was so used to the act that sometimes he grew unaware of his actions. At times the human body frightened him. It felt vulnerable, mortal, real to be human.   
"Something is wrong."  
"It must be. You don't have the wrong kind of--impulses." Perhaps the word wasn't exactly an appropriate one, but it was the best Ro could do at the moment. The few minutes of baseless fright had worn her out emotionally. "Do you think we should get off this train?"  
"No, we need to reach Maryland. This is the best way."  
"We could always find another way. It's not easy to travel when you've got the Gestapo on your tail."  
Zeta winced, analyzing the Gestapo remark. "Why would Alistair give us the tickets? It doesn't make any sense. We weren't so nice to him."  
"Why were we stupid enough to accept them?"  
"What's he trying to do?"  
"Maybe he knows about us and is trying to protect us. You know that if we'd purchased the tickets ourselves---"  
"But," Zeta interrupted, with a valuable point, "we had the money that Julie and Tess gave us. Alistair didn't know we were given money. Maybe he did feel sorry for us and only wanted to help."  
"He's not the charitable sort," Ro said. "Trust me. There's nothing on his tax papers that says he can deduct a gift of five-hundred creds he made to buy EHT tickets for fugitives. And that's if he even pays his taxes."  
Zeta gave something of a half-snicker, weak and impartial. He examined the platform out the window, and the whistle for the EHT hooted from above and seeped through the metal walls of the high-speed train. They were nearly on their way. Departure was set. Zeta and Ro looked at each other and knew they had to make a decision. The knock came at the door again, identical to the one that Ro had heard before. Zeta gestured for Ro to stay where she was while he answered, completely on guard. It was the customary beverage girl returning. She and her two-layered cart of juice and soft drinks were ready to fulfill an order.  
"Anything to drink, Miss?" the young lady asked, observing Ro as she sat tensely on the couch.  
Ro tried to relax, and ordered her typical cherry drink. Zeta sat on the edge of the opposite couch, thinking of what they should do. He could not settle the inkling inside that something was wrong. This was too easy. He'd grown too used to every departure from every town being dangerous and difficult. Suddenly, he was distrusting in the face of ease.   
A great crash occurred without warning, which rose Ro off the couch and into the back of the room, and Zeta was alarmed, sizing up the situation quickly. Someone had run down the hallway, crashed into the beverage cart, tipping it to its side and into the square room. As a result, the floor of their compartment was dark and dampened by every open canister of liquid, not to mention a pound or two of white ice cubes.  
"Ew," Ro said, and lifted a foot from the floor that was like a lake. "That's not going on our bill," Ro told the beverage girl, as Zeta helped her clean up some of the mess. Ro joined in, as the compartment became cramped with the arrival of two other EHT staff members. The luxury car manager was among them, and insisted on moving Ro and Zeta to another empty compartment to compensate for the messy accident. The only available one was on the car ahead, and wondered if it would be acceptable.  
Zeta examined the manager. "There are plenty of empty rooms in this car," he said. He knew that for a fact. He'd seen the empty rooms.  
The manager explained. "The other rooms are not cleaned. If you would prefer, we could certainly prepare one for you in this car, but there isn't another in the car ahead which is ready now."  
The excuse was enough to satisfy Ro, but Zeta could not be so placated, not when he was already on alert. Unfortunately, he was unable to find an excuse to keep them in the present car, and Ro had her heart set on getting comfortable. The train had already left the depot, gaining speed, and they were on their way, whether they liked it or not.  
"Well," Ro started, her boots sloshing around over the wet carpet, "I don't think we can stay here for ten hours. It smells like a soda-pop stand." Ro grabbed the sleeve of Zeta's coat. "Come on, Zee, let these nice gentlemen show us to our new accommodations."   
Their new room was just like the other, but on the west side of the train instead of the east, so that their window, during most of the trip, faced north. They were quickly made comfortable, the manager offering his personal assistance, though it was not required. Zeta locked the door as soon as the staff members had stopped the cordial hovering. Ro stretched out on the couch, using both throw pillows under her head. Zeta watched her in a moment of curiosity. Ro slept a lot when they traveled, but especially lately. It seemed that whenever he looked at her she was half-asleep, asleep, or--and he frowned thinking of it--unconscious. As he fiddled with the sheen curtain at the window, and began to watch the lights of suburban Seapoint speed by in a motion blur, Zeta spoke to Ro quietly.  
"I hope you'll consider what we talked about a few nights ago, Ro."  
Ro peeled open a reluctant eye, just one, like a cat, and peered at Zee with a baby-blue iris. "H'mm?" She closed the eye again, leaving Zeta to guess her emotion.  
"The vacation," he reminded. "The nice long rest somewhere out of the way. Anywhere you want."  
"Considering it?" Ro said thickly through a yawn. She let out a little chuckle. "I'd love to do it. I just don't know if it's possible."  
"Why wouldn't it be?"  
"Money, for one thing." Ro was too tired to have the discussion, but Zeta was persistent. And it was nice to dream that for a week or so she could sit still and not have to worry.  
"Why worry about money?"  
"Well, it's really easy to worry about it when you don't have any."  
"You're worried about the NSA tracing the number on the credcard, of course. Well, that is easy enough to get around, and I'm surprised you didn't think of it before. You are endlessly resourceful."  
"I am. What's the way to get around it?"  
"Put the reservation deposit on another credcard, like the one Tess gave us. It wouldn't be more than fifty. Then pay the rest of the bill on my credcard when you leave. By the time the NSA traces you, you'll be long gone."  
Ro couldn't even bring herself to ask why he was referring to the trip in single form, her form, as though he would not be along. She was tired, but she was not tired enough to realize Zeta's speech. Ro rolled over onto her stomach, her head turned from Zee, and her forehead pushed against the plush of the couch. "Goodnight, Zee," she said. Zeta leaned over the gap between his couch and hers, to lay his fingers over the shape of her shoulder and press it affectionately. She touched his fingers for a moment, so lightly that the synthoid felt nothing. "Goodnight, Ro."  
Three hours southeast from the departure from Seapoint, Zeta sat in a purely human arrangement on the couch. His legs were upon the upholstery, the soles of his boots together, his knees together, his arms resting at his sides, supported by bent elbows, and in his hands he held his favorite invention, the Reader, and his rapidly moving eyes scanned the words of a downloaded news article. As a robot, he read too fast, too swiftly, comprehending near eighty words in ten seconds. To store information, important information, he had to move slower and sort more meticulously, more like a human would. But, unlike a human, he chose what he remembered. A human was lucky if they could remember ten things in a single chapter of a history book. Zeta remembered what he wanted and nothing more, nothing less. And there were only a few worthwhile points in the article that were worth storing. He'd already read six others of similar style, and he'd even watched television. He had thought about shutting down for a while, give himself and his hologram a break, restore some energy to depleting areas, but he could not bring himself to do it. The events of earlier, his certainty that something was wrong, lingered. Still, nothing odd had happened, aside from the changing of their rooms. Zeta casted a light glance at Ro, now asleep on her back, her mouth open a little, and she looked peaceful. He genuinely wished she would find whatever she was looking for in Hillsburg, even if he didn't think it was wise to return. Rosalie Rowen did what Rosalie Rowen needed to do. Zeta would not interfere with that.  
The train moved along smoothly, nearly noiselessly, and he knew Seapoint was far behind. The blackness of nothing out the window told him they were in the middle of nowhere. His internal GPS system put their location somewhere near Lawrence, Kansas. Occasionally there would be an insignificant town that passed by, lasting momentarily, and gone almost too soon to be noticed. The speed of the train easily reached two-hundred and fifty miles per hour, especially over flat, Midwestern geography, and anything that passed was passed in a hurry. The train had made no stops, not once, and was on its direct way to Maryland, a small state on the opposite coast, in which Hillsburg was located. Hillsburg was more than eighty miles north-northwest from of Spring City, the train's urban destination. Zeta was thankful for the nonstop redeye. They would alight in Maryland near ten in the morning, with the entire day ahead of them.  
Unfortunately, once the train gave a sudden and unusual jolt, Zeta held to the armrest of the chair for balance. He wondered if the train would be making an unexpected stop after all.  
The train rocked again, and this time the power to the accelerator was declined. The ride came to a complete standstill over an abnormally brief period of time, perhaps five minutes instead of the typical twenty or so. Zeta heard the force-gravity cabin regulator cease its light hum, return briefly, then disappear altogether. At the same time, the running lights overhead flickered, dimmed, and returned to full power.  
Ro lifted her head, awake and aware. "What's going on?"  
"The train appears to be malfunctioning," Zeta replied. "In fact, it has stopped moving completely." He stepped across to sit beside Ro, and she moved her long legs out of his way. He couldn't help but feel trapped.  
"Do you think it's them?"  
Zeta looked at her. He knew what 'them' she referred to. But, unfortunately, the NSA finding them on a redeye to Maryland was not out of the question. They'd had experience with mass transit before, not so very long ago.  
"Well, if it is them," Ro said, still with her sense of humor, "they'll come in here, guns a blazin'!"  
The warning alarm began to blare, accompanied by a blinking red light, to explain to all passengers something had gone wrong. A voice and face came over the vidscreen PA system, set up just near the door. It was the head engineer, and he tried to describe the situation to keep his travelers calm. Zeta was calm, and Ro only a bit more excited than he. They watched the chipper-faced captain as the announcement was declared.  
"Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I'm sorry for the inconvenience, and I certainly hope we haven't frightened all of you. We have had a problem in luxury car 'G'. Nothing at this time to be alarmed about. We have stopped the train to examine the problem. Your cooperation is expected. Passengers will need to use the nearest car exits at this time. Please utilize caution and courtesy while leaving the train. No doubt we'll get everything running smoothly again soon. Thank you." The screen flashed and went black.  
Ro started to laugh as she and Zeta prepared to leave their compartment located in car 'F', the car just ahead of 'G'.   
"Zee!" Ro exclaimed, tugging at his arm.  
"I know, Ro," he said, taking her wrist in his hand. "Car 'G' was the car we were in before."  
So he did know, Ro thought. Perhaps his intuitive "bad vibes" were not far off the mark, after all.  
They made it to the exit door that led out of the car and onto a staircase, where they would wait on the side of the train like the other passengers. Zeta expected the door to open at the push of the button, like it typically did. But when he pushed the button no door opened. Not a thing happened. Zeta pushed it again. Still nothing. He was about to go again, when Ro put out a hand.  
"You know what the definition of insanity is."  
Zeta was cool in the face of difficulty. "Repeating the same process over again and expecting a different result when no different result is probable."  
Ro hadn't anticipated such a thorough answer, or an answer at all. For a moment she was momentarily confused. "Zee, let's try the other door, shall we?" Ro directed the way down the long, narrow hallway of the car, passing by all the empty rooms. Zeta glanced into each one, sticking in his head briefly to look for a sign of life. By the time they made it past the seven rooms, to the opposite doorway, Zeta knew he and Ro were the only two left in car 'F'. First at the door, Ro slammed her hand over the door release, and, again, nothing happened.  
"What's going on?" she asked, far from literal.  
"It appears as though we're locked in. We're the only ones in this car, Ro."  
Somehow this didn't surprise her. Very little did. "It's definitely not the NSA we're dealing with, then. The NSA would never play a stupid trick like this."  
Zeta agreed. "If they wanted us they would come aboard and find us. I've learned that the NSA does not dawdle, particularly Bennett."  
"We're finding a way out of here. Come on!" Ro tried the windows, but they would not budge. Zeta explained how they would only pop out of the frame at a moment of high impact. Ro felt helpless. There were a few people out on the grounds outside the train, and Ro saw them shifting about in the dark. She pounded on the plastic glass with the bottom of her fists to no avail. Everyone had their heads turned to the opposite car, dislodged from the train already, where the real danger was, over a hundred feet away. Ro wasn't so sure the real danger wasn't in her car. She flipped around and saw Zeta in the room directly across. He'd already ripped the curtain rod off the wall and had it tossed aside.  
"The tin man with the plan," Ro said, and itched a spot on her head lazily, like that sort of predicament happened to them often. She was used to adventures and weaseling her way from rough situations.  
Zeta examined the ceiling a foot from the windowed wall. He stood on the couch, just at the edge of it, keeping a good balance in his human shape. As a robot balance was one thing, but it was different for him in the hologram. He was not sure he trusted gravity as much being a man. At least in his robot form, he felt that he could fight gravity and almost always win. Zeta punched his hand through the thin plastic ceiling tile, to find a rigid support beam. He gripped it tightly, then reached up his other hand. As soon as he let his feet slip from the edge of the couch, he swung from the metal rod and kicked his feet at the window. It only took three kicks of the synthoid's powerful adamantium legs to finish it off. The entire contraption popped out and disappeared to the ground below. A vague clash and thud was heard.  
Zeta let go of the beam, and landed on his soles flatly, his knees bent to absorb the shock. He stood and brushed his hands clean of plastic chips.  
"Do you smell that?" Ro said suddenly, catching the whiff of an odd odor in the air. Zeta was escorting her to the window, and she was about to step on his knee and jump out when she caught the peculiar, unnatural scent. "Something's burning." Ro looked Zeta over and lifted an eyebrow. "Is it you?"  
"It must be the other car. Go ahead, Ro, and back away from the train. I'll join you in a minute." He began to give her leverage to lift her over the sill.  
"Oh, no you don't!" Ro maneuvered adroitly from his hold, jumped back and stuck an accusing finger at his face. "Look, we're in danger here and it's no time to go play superhero!"  
"I was playing superhero fine when I was helping you out the window," he retorted.  
Jas Dumes was right, Ro thought to herself, Zeta was picking up too much of her sardonic sense of humor. "All right," she huffed, and resumed her position to leave the car. "But if you're not back in a minute, I will run in and find you." Ro was tilted so that she was about to jump from the sill, but had one final question. "How are you going to get in?"  
"I won't. I just want to check that everyone is safe. I would like to investigate the door as well. It should not be malfunctioning."  
So that she would not delay a moment longer, Zeta hoisted Ro from the window without another word or protest. He edged his sight just over the sill only to make sure Ro was fine. She was, though grumpy from his abruptness, but dusted herself off and began the trek into the field. Zeta scanned the area around her in thermal vision and saw that there were only a few people on that side of the train. Most were on the other. He left the broken window and the haphazard compartment, refusing to worry about Ro. If need arose, she could take care of herself. She'd done it before. She could do it again. He discarded immediately every memory that recalled the times he'd saved her life. At the moment they did him no good. He tried instead to replay the memories of the times she'd saved him, including the first time they met. That was more helpful.  
The smell of the smoke grew worse the nearer he stepped to the door. Even Zeta, whose olfactory perception was not as keen as a human's, could clearly distinguish the smell of smoke. There was even a haze of it across his color-dull visage. The door was still locked, of course, and he hadn't anticipated a sudden change. He looked around, making sure he was really alone and those outside could not see him, then disengaged his hologram. Using a rapid small saw built in as part of his weaponry system that elevated from his forearm, Zeta was able to have the door from the frame in no time. He held it in place for a moment longer, while he switched back to his hologram form. When he stepped aside the door fell from its place and crashed to the floor. Parts of the plastic glass bent and broke from the fall. Zeta stood on the end of it, and the board squeaked and rocked. Zeta stared out of the train's end, no car 'G' immediately in front of him. Instead, the car had already been dislodged from the majority of the train, perhaps even from all of it, though Zeta could not see behind the flaming car to make the hypothesis a fact. He heard shouts and subdued talking, even the occasional private whisper from gawking passengers who stood by and watched with fascination and shock.   
His examination of the door-opening unit heeded only one obvious result: it had been fried deliberately by a soldering laser and the intent was absolute malfunction. Whoever completed the task had worked quickly and quietly, leaving little trace of the disturbed wires. But it occurred to Zeta that the culprit had full awareness of who was trapped inside, and that Zeta would be able to tell a mechanical problem from pure sabotage. He was supposed to know it hadn't been an accident.  
Zeta jumped from the edge of the car and landed softly on the track, a mixture of new hoverguides and MPH sensors with old wooden rails. For a moment he remained crouched, to hold on to his invisibility a moment longer.   
"Save anyone yet?"  
Zeta swerved around, startled at the sudden appearance of Ro from behind.   
"Wow, I frightened you?"  
"I was deep in thought," he excused.  
"I scared you _and_ you're deep in thought? The world is coming to an end, right here in the middle of nowhere. They always said this is where the apocalypse would happen." Ro was beside Zeta, and they were both awkwardly stepping over uneven wooden railway ties rotted and no longer in use. "Where are we, Zee?"  
"One-point-five miles north of Rock Creek, Kansas." The answer was an automatic response. Zeta was watching anticipatorily for any immediate signs of danger from the burning of luxury car 'G'. Ro glanced at him and wondered if his superhero need was injured because he could not find use for it during a grand plight.   
"I think they've got everything covered over there, Zee. You said yourself there weren't a lot of people in that car. I'm sure they got out all right."  
"Ro," he said, his scan remaining on the burning car a hundred feet away, a glowing orange hue that lifted sparks into the night sky, "we were supposed to be in that car."  
"I know," Ro said, reflecting Zeta's own mournful tone. "Maybe it's just a coincidence."  
"And maybe not," he said. "I told you something was wrong. I inspected the lock of the car door, and it had been deliberately tampered with."  
Ro had supposed as much by her own instinct. "Do you think it's Alistair Dumes? Why would he have anything to do with it?"  
"I don't know," Zeta said, and wished he had more answers. He had a lot of theories, but no definite answer. Theories were no good to him, not yet, while he still adhered too much to his robotic programming: theories are bad, and facts are good.   
Ro knew his 'I don't know' held in something he was not telling her. She was irked by it, and knowing that barb was there, puncturing by the insinuation that she was too unworthy to know. "What is it, Zee? Something's on your mind."  
"It is too odd that we should get tickets to a luxury car without needing to pay for them."  
"That is odd, yes."  
"There's something else."  
"Good, I was starting to think that first idea was getting a little lonely."  
"We need to get off these tracks," Zeta suddenly said, on a purposeful tangent. They stepped down the incline to the field below, an empty portion ten feet wide, cleared by machines when the rail line was built. Not far from the tracks were heavy woods, void of conifers but overrun with deciduous and undergrowth, so Ro was certain Zeta's GPS system hadn't been off; they were most definitely in the Midwest.   
"Keep talking, Zee," Ro said, once they were safely away from the encroaching train as well as any nearby passenger whose hearing was, perhaps, a little too nosy.   
"There was someone who spilled over that beverage cart."  
Ro hadn't seen or heard anyone, so she looked at him peculiarly.   
"You didn't see it?"  
"No. Well, it happened so fast and I wasn't really paying attention. You think whoever did it, did it on purpose? That's almost silly."  
"I don't think it is silly. If Alistair Dumes thinks we're still in that car, he's going to think we're injured or dead. And maybe someone else wants him to think that, too."  
"We don't know anything about Alistair Dumes, and I doubt we're going to. I don't see how he could be involved. What would he be in it for? We were just a couple of people who happened to bring his nephew home. He doesn't know us from anyone else."  
"When I get the chance," Zeta decided, "I'm going to find out whatever I can on Alistair Dumes."  
"It'll be a waste of your time," Ro snapped. "It's just a coincidence. The tickets, the changing of the car, and the fire are all coincidences."  
Zeta stepped close to Ro in the dark and set his firm hands on her shoulders. "I'm sorry," he said softly. "I cannot see it that way."  
"Try it."  
"I saw someone else in the car when the beverage girl was there. Someone purposely led us out of that room and into a car that didn't catch fire. Whoever it is wants us alive. I want to find out why. But, if the fire isn't a coincidence, it also means there's someone who would wish you dead, and maybe me."  
Ro traipsed from Zeta and folded her arms low about her waist. She looked back at him briefly. "Someone wanting to hurt us is nothing new. It is nice to come across someone who wants us alive rather than someone who wants us dead."  
"There have been a few."  
"I can name all of them and still have fingers left over. And I'm only counting the ones who have saved us from some real sour moments. Like Batman and Bucky, maybe even Tiff." Then Ro started to laugh, but it died quietly into the night, pervaded by the voices of the other passengers at a distance. "And Agent West, too, since he always seems to do something so stupid that inadvertently saves me. I'd make a better NSA agent than him!" Ro pranced around in the dim light, some of it orange from the dying fire of the car, some of it silvery-blue from the high moon, nearly at its half-point. "I wonder who it is? Think it might have something to do with Batty Gwennie?"  
"That's possible. It might be someone else we've never even considered."  
"Who? One of the people I just mentioned? Well, I think Batman's probably got his wings pretty full like usual. No free time to run out to Kansas to save synthoids. Bucky's not a likely candidate; he's too busy with school and teaching. And we're well on our way to see Tiff. It's so tough being a superhero these days!"  
Zeta crossed his ankles as he stood then fell immediately to the ground. He would like to know whether it was true, whether they did have a savior. Zeta wanted to believe but hope was a new thing for him. Hope had never been there before, not really. What Ro said was true, and they only had a few true superheroes in their past help them out of situations between life and death. How was it that an infiltration unit like himself was always getting into situations where he could not save himself from danger? That was where Ro came in. Zeta looked up at her, and she had her head titled back to see the stars in the clear sky overhead. Ro was his daily savior.  
"They're over to your right," he offered.  
Ro looked that way, toward the west, and found the cluster of the seven stars not far from the arrow of their famous hunter Orion. She also found some other familiar stars: the Labor Day triangle high overhead, Regulus and Mira. Once she had had her fill of the magical stars, and her neck began to throb in soreness from the odd manipulation, she joined Zee in the tall grass. Some insects flew about as she ruffled through the pliable sprigs. "Hey, Zee?"  
"Yes?"  
Ro folded her knees up to her chin, the way she often did when she couldn't believe she was about to say something so unlike her. "Do you remember those things that you and Julie were talking about last night? About souls and emotions--those sorts of things?"  
"I remember." Zeta closed his eyes, human eyelids, and, for a split second, all he saw was darkness, until the hologram became translucent again and he could see through it. At times he preferred the darkness.  
"I want you to know something." Ro waited for any sort of reaction from Zee, and he did look at her, awaiting what it was he should know. She sighed and picked at a blade of grass, ripping off the seed pods at the top, allowing them to fall between the thick foliage. "You can talk about those sorts of things with me if you want, like if you have a question or something."  
"'Those sorts of things'?"  
"Emotions."  
"It used to make you uncomfortable."  
"I know."  
A tense and incredible silence came between them, only interrupted by the shouts of workmen organizing the team to bring the train back together, and by the sounds of the insect chorus in the woods around them. In such a surreal state, the rest of the world seemed so very far away. Ro shut her eyes tightly, wincing and hiding her face behind her hand.   
"Thank you, Ro," Zeta said, as the tense moment passed away like a deadly sleep, coming and going and taking whatever it could. Zee could find no other way to respond to Ro that was uplifting and positive. All he could think of were negative replies which would do neither of them good. He knew what she felt from time-to-time, even better than she did, and feeling anything wasn't part of her problem. Ro was pushing herself into something she wasn't willing to understand: consideration. The definition of consideration to her implied how much she wanted to become kinder, more open, less cynical and biting. This was something Ro was not ready for. Zeta rose from the grass then towered over her. She stared up at him quietly for a moment, as though about to be reprimanded. He extended his hand for her. "You don't need to change, Ro. Life is fine the way that you are. Be who you are. Appreciate that."  
"That reminds me, Zee," she began, "I've been meaning to tell you something."  
"Something else?"  
"Something about what you said when we were going into Glenview on those horses. About how you thought you were just a role, just a part. Did you mean it?"  
Zeta's response was delayed by the appearance of the EHT union workers, maintenance crews of burly, strong men in greased jumpsuits and heavy suede utility gloves over calloused mitts. They were hooking car 'F' to car 'H', with car 'G' no longer separating the two. It was a minimal amount of physical labor for the use of such men, since most of it was completed by remote and each car's system of independent hoverjets. The train would be ready to ride again in a few minutes. Zeta tore his intrigued gaze from the work to Ro.   
"I am just a role."  
This remark threw a fire deep in Ro that ignited and exploded before she could stop it. "That isn't true, and you know it!"  
The vehemence and volume in her voice was as unexpected by Ro as it was by Zee.  
"Sorry," she said, "I didn't mean to yell. I just mean . . . You definitely have your own sense of self, Zee. You have a conscience. You have compassion, even more compassion than I do. And there's no way that's all just pretend. You're too much in the real world to live in make-believe. You are too much a part--a part of something bigger--to say that everything you are is just pretend. Very little of you is fake."  
It was only when the passengers were instructed to return to their seats when Zeta spoke again on the strange subject Ro had introduced. He slipped his arm about the girl's shoulders as they made their way toward the car. "Ro, this just goes to show you that both of us have a lot we need to learn about what it's like to be human."  
Somehow, the peculiar but gentle response from Zee was enough to fulfill Ro. She knew it was true, and, therefore, she could not argue.  
As soon as they were back inside car 'F', one of the managers came scurrying around to check the passengers. At first the manager was confused as to the dark-haired man and the blonde-girl's whereabouts, since they were not in the cabin he'd brought them to earlier. That cabin he looked into now, to find it was in complete disarray: a missing window and a broken curtain, not to mention a gaping hole in the ceiling plastic. The manager huffed, much disgusted at the sight and straightened out the bib of his stiff blue uniform. He found the missing passengers in the next car. The dark-haired man looked up at him and began an explanation.   
"We were trapped in," Zeta said. "The doors were locked--or jammed electronically. There was no other way to get out but break the window. I trust you don't mind."  
"The doors were locked?" the manager asked, just to clarify. He watched the man nod. "Well, that's odd. No one else was in the car but you two?"  
"No one else," Zeta confirmed.  
"H'mm. Would you like us to investigate this mishap?"  
"No thank you," answered Zee quickly. He didn't want any trouble or involvement of authorities. "What happened to car 'G'?"  
"We're still wondering that ourselves. They've separated the car from the rest of the train, as I'm sure you're aware, and will have it examined. Appears as though one of the rooms caught fire somehow. It was a good thing you two were no longer in that cabin. It seems like the fire began there. Well," the manager smiled self-consciously, as though it would take away the panic the girl expressed, "no harm done. Someone will be by to block up the broken window temporarily. Don't be alarmed at the noise you hear. It won't last long. Then, we'll return on our way. Spring City will be reached with only an hour delay." He examined his watch face carefully. "Should be about eleven or so when we get there. Goodnight." The manager shut the door, and Zeta reached across from his spot on the corner of the couch to lock it. He seemed to complete the act in aggravation.  
"We're lucky," Ro told him. "Really lucky."  
"We are predestined toward good luck." The reply was articulated and announced smartly. Zeta flashed Ro a smile. She was too tired to vociferously battle the uselessness of believing in fate.  
It was still difficult for her to fall asleep, once the train was again moving along smoothly, and she was on her way to seek a past she wasn't sure was worth the chaotic chase.  
While she did sleep, she dreamt restlessly of the scrapes she'd been in with Batman, of the corruption they'd met with in Gotham City, and of the irritating perfection of Tiffany Morgan. The backdrop to it all was a Hillsburg Ro had lived in briefly. Then her mother, Lola Rowen, appeared in the dream, almost as an afterthought. The utopian sensation upon the visit from her mother lasted for several moments after Ro awoke. She opened her eyes to the compartment, the images of the dream flashing through her memory just before they scattered away forever, and all that remained was a surreal residue and that euphoric feeling. Ro knew she'd made the right decision returning to parts of her roots: Maryland, Spring City, Hillsburg. The dream had brought her reassurance.  
The feisty light of late morning illuminated their cabin, and Ro flipped over to her side, expecting to see Zeta on the couch opposite. She frowned when she saw it was empty. Ro wasn't worried. Wherever he'd gone, he'd return. He always did. She drew back a corner of the beige curtain to observe the passing of East Country out her window. The train was slowing down exponentially as the dozen or so miles wore on to the station in Spring City. The speed of the train then was about a hundred and fifty miles per hour. Ro whispered to herself. "Maryland, you look good, but you look the same." An apple orchard past by, and Ro remembered how often she and the Morgans had gone apple picking in Maryland's peaceful, fruit-bearing country. The memory was so poignant it frightened her, and she drew away her hand, allowing the curtain to fall in place.   
Ro happened to catch an odd shape in her peripheral vision, and looked down to the side of her couch. Zeta was there, having ditched his hologram for his synthoid shape, and was "at rest," as he called it. Not a sleep like humans knew, just a rest, where he shut down the majority of his functions to restore a more even energy. Usually set with an internal timer, the synthoid would return to normal within the time allotted, whether it be five minutes or several hours. Sometimes he'd let out a loud impression of a human snore, but, thankfully, the annoying option was currently disengaged and Zee slept quietly. Aside from such superficial information, Ro had no other idea how the synthoid's resting worked. Dr. Selig and his team had thought of everything, she concluded. And she wondered if Zeta could dream the way she dreamed. How strange that she'd never bothered to ask him before, when dreaming seemed like such a waste of time.  
As long as he was out, Ro stepped over his angular, shiny adamantium body and headed out of the car, stretching in cat-like ways as she went. When she returned, Zeta had already returned to his normal state, complete with the hologram. He was peering out the window while the train stopped at the Spring City station. Ro shut the door behind her, and Zeta engaged her in genial morning banter. His thoughts were still heavy from what had happened to them the night before, and he wished again for answers to this new riddle. At least before, he and Ro knew who were their enemies and who were their friends, for the most part. But now it seemed like they had a nameless new friend and, more than likely, a nameless new enemy. The NSA never involved themselves with actually trying to assassinate Zeta and Ro, so the locking of doors and the arson was the work of someone else. Or just of an angry fate.  
The head engineer's voice came over the announcement system a minute or two after the train stopped at the designated platform. "Good morning, ladies and gentleman. Welcome to Spring City, Maryland. The current temperature is twenty-three degrees Celsius with clear skies and plenty of sunshine. Local time is eleven-fifteen. We hope you have a pleasant stay in Spring City or wherever your final destination may take you."  
Ro scoffed at the picture of the captain just at the screen went black. She doubted her stay would be anything pleasant, not if the strange trip there was any indication of what the visit may procure. 

--  
Note

What is Rÿyennas?  
Yeah, and what's with that ultra-funky name? I always imagined Rÿyennas being a cross of Reuters and Lexis (not the car company). As for the name, I have no idea where I came up with that! I know I supposed the company to be Dutch-based, and maybe that's where it came from. You can pronounce it anyway you like. Rou-yen-nas is how I read it.


	17. Seventeen

17) 

From one platform of the Spring City station to another just across the building was the new destination for Ro and Zeta. The commuter train to Hillsburg and other outer Spring City suburbs along the Patapsco Valley Line was free and paid for by high mid-Atlantic taxes. The people of the Spring City metropolis could afford a few extra taxes; they were some of the richest people in the country. Hillsburg was the farthest suburb, a sprawling place full of strip-malls, car dealerships, Ground Wires, country clubs and mansions for the filthy rich and the ones who just sank deeper into debt. A mix between the modern and the historic. A beautiful American façade.  
Ro looked around her in wonder through the sunlit Spring City station. The place had not changed. The roof was still arched, framed with blue metal that glinted, and between the beams was sandblasted glass, where the sunlight was diffused to a subtle soft glow in the lofty complex. Immaculate as ever, Ro was tempted to tip over garbage receptacles as she went to make the place a touch dirty, but refrained from the lapse into juvenile behavior that would only lead to an interview with the police. However, she was tempted, and that said something about her. She hadn't really changed, not much, since she'd been in Spring City. There was still that restless, angsty dissatisfied young teen living inside of Ro somewhere, ready to break from the shackles of responsibility and make crazy upon the face of the earth again. Someday, she told the inner creature, you will get your chance.  
The hour delay they'd suffered had no affect on their ability to catch the commuter train to Hillsburg. There was one every twenty-five minutes, departing from one of two separate outdoor platforms. People waited in the middle of the two lines for whichever train would arrive first.  
"I see they're still using the electric monorail," Ro said as they approached the mid-platform. "It was efficient in its day."  
"It still is," Zeta threw in. "Perhaps the city doesn't want to spend the money on the hover system."  
"Maybe they're waiting for something better to come along."  
"Like what?"  
"I don't know," Ro presented a snide grin. "Teleportation, I bet."  
The monorail pulled through the platform and slowed to a crawl, finally to a stop. The bell chimed and the doors opened. Out flew a herd of humans then in went one of similar appearance. Ro found herself studying faces of strangers keenly as they passed her. A few of them felt her eyes and stared back until she looked away. Sometimes she did look away, sometimes she didn't. It was more fun to stare at someone for as long as they dared return the look. They were everyday people, migratory workers from Spring City who went to the suburbs for lunch with the family or for small business meetings. They were not interested in a teenage girl who played the childish staring game. But Ro wasn't meaning to be ornery or scary. There was a purpose to her outright gawk. She wanted to see someone she knew. Then again, she thought as she sighed, maybe she didn't. There were more foes in Spring City for her than there were friends. She had so few friends, anyway.  
Zeta took a seat in the back of the monorail cart, which could hold a hundred people snugly, but there were only about forty. Ro held to a metal pipe for balance, and mentally prepped herself for her first visit to Hillsburg in a year. Zeta's voice behind her caused her to peer over her shoulder at him. He was offering his seat to a very pregnant woman, and she accepted it most graciously. He grabbed hold of the rod just above Ro's hand. She looked at him blankly. "What?" he asked. Ro sniffed and didn't reply.   
As soon as the thirty-minute ride came to an end and Ro stepped off the rail and into the familiar Hillsburg flat-box station, her legs turned to mush. She wasn't entirely sure she had the courage to go through with the visit. It was all she could do to keep herself from walking crookedly beside Zeta, and she focused her thoughts on keeping her legs stiff and straight, so they would not betray the fear she felt. But Zeta, who felt it would insult her to offer any sort of aid, sensed what Ro was going through, he could even see the physical affect it had on her. The rosy lips, usually pink with life, at least form what Zeta could decipher, were pale and tense. And her self-confidence was always visible when she walked with her chin out, her head high, her arms swinging at her sides. But now she was tucked into herself, arms folded, shoulders slouched, eyes to the ground. It was not the same Ro.   
At a street corner in mid-city, she stopped on the sidewalk and threw out her arm so Zeta wouldn't follow through on his next step. "Wait, Zee," she said. She examined the buildings of downtown Hillsburg, the few blocks of it that were worth looking upon. Most in her circumference were brownstone buildings from ages past, and newer ones were renovated brick. Those built in the twenty-first century were glass and metal, sterile reminders of the future as it crowned the past and left tall shadows which doused the streets. Ro and Zeta were standing in such a shadow, in the shadow of the Hillsburg Gazette building, five stories high, relatively inadequate compared to Gotham or Spring City. Ro ignored the feelings Hillsburg threw at her from every direction, from every stinging reminder, every regretful memory. She locked herself into a vidphone booth, leaving Zeta outside. She waved a hand at him as a way to signal he should find something to do, so he wouldn't be standing about in a manner which caught the wrong kind of attention. He went to a nearby e-newsstand and found something to read. Ro dialed operator's assistance. The line rang a few times loudly, until the face of the operator appeared.  
"Operator's assistance. May I help you, miss?"  
"I'd like a secure line, please."  
"For how long?"  
"A minute."  
"Please slide your credcard through to authorize the process."  
Ro took out the credcard from Mrs. Dumes and ran it through the machine, magnetic strip down. She watched as the operator fiddled with buttons, and then heard the clanking of the keyboard.  
"Authorization approved. You will be charged five credits for one minute of secure line use. Please tell me the number you wish to call."  
Ro gave out the number of Tiffany Morgan's private line. For her own safety, Ro had taken the time to memorize the number ages ago, but had never needed to use it. Ro silently hoped the girl would be home. And Tiff always answered her phone, even if she had three calls waiting. Ro hoped a minute of secure line would be enough, or the NSA could possibly trace Tiff's incoming calls, they probably were, and trace it to the phone booth Ro stood in. The thought made Ro's palms sweat, and she rubbed them on her jeans.  
The operator's face blackened off the LCD display. A moment later, after a few humming rings, the vidphone splashed into live color, and there was Tiff Morgan, staring into the screen.  
"Ro!" Tiff shouted, overly excited, surprised beyond anything. "Oh my god, Ro!"  
"Shut up, Tiff. I only have a minute. This is a secure line so your buddies at the NSA can't track me. Look, I need to talk to you. It's important. You won't believe how important. Meet me at the Seventh Street Ground Wire as soon as you can. But be there in the next hour."  
Tiff's brown eyes examined Ro. There was no hesitancy in them, not much of anything beyond surprise. "All right, Ro. I can be there in fifteen minutes."  
"And do I even need to tell you to come alone?"  
Tiff brightened into a smile. "No need, Rosa. I got it. Ground Wire. Seventh Street. Half-hour. Tiff, signing off."  
Ro flipped down the vidphone screen, ending the call. She held her hot forehead and cheek to the cool steel frame of the booth for a moment, just to calm down. Her heart was racing, and she could hear the echo in her ears. After a few deep breaths, she exited the vidphone booth, and the swift Maryland breeze welcomed her. Zeta was still at the electronic newsstand, reading the Hillsburg Gazette. He retreated to the main menu when she appeared at his side.  
"How did it go?" Zeta inquired.   
"Fine," nodded Ro. "I got her to meet me at the Ground Wire that's down a few blocks."  
"Good. And how does your foster sister look?"  
"She looks great, as ever. Like she doesn't know that. She knows. And she knows we know."  
They began their slog toward the café located five blocks south. The morning was sunny and mild, warmer than Seapoint and far more humid than Glenview. Ro took off her black duster jacket, the one Julie had given to her, and threw it over her arm. She felt more comfortable, cooler internally, with just the flashy red sleeveless shirt and black pants. Her nerves were calming down, and their inflammation had caused momentary overheating. Maybe she wasn't as pretty as Tiff Morgan, to some, but she had the inner fire of a thousand Tiff Morgans. Ro knew which of those attributes was most important.  
"I meant," Zeta said, "if she looked surprised to see you."  
"She is pretty, though," Ro said, and kicked a scrap of garbage with the tip of her boot. It scurried ahead, then trickled into the gutter.  
Zeta watched the artifact as it moved, then scanned the block ahead. He was trying to find a memory of Tiffany Morgan, searching his database. When he did, he froze it and examined the girl. He had nothing to compare looks to, except Ro, and he'd never thought of anyone or even Ro as beautiful, but Ro was. The image of Tiffany was grayed and dull, like his eyesight. He saw nothing in vibrant color as a human did. But color could be misleading, and it wasn't necessary for a synthoid. His creators knew he'd do fine without the capability of seeing bright color. "What color is Tiff's hair, Ro? Is it red or brown?"  
"Red. Sort of a subtle red. Auburn, maybe they'd call it." Ro gave Zeta an askew glance. "Don't you know?"  
"I'm incapable of seeing pure color," he responded.  
"I didn't know that. I've known you for two years and I'm just finding this out! You're color blind?"   
"Not exactly. The lenticular shield which covers my visual receptors is a translucent thermaset plastic. It gives the world a--a washed-out appearance. Any memory I record, anything I see, is only in half the saturation that you see." Zeta stopped, as they were at a street corner with a blinking "Don't Walk" sign. He noted the instructions and looked instead at Ro. Her face was so familiar to him, yet he analyzed her anew. "For instance, I know that your hair is blonde. I see that it is blonde. But I don't know the true saturation of the blonde. The same with your eyes. The irises are blue. I see that, but I don't know the exact shade of blue."  
Ro blinked, self-conscious of her eye color suddenly, the intense watery baby-blue. She saw they had a walking signal and began to cross. Zeta was a step behind until he caught up. "That's fascinating," she told him. "I had no idea. I try not to think too much about your technical side. You can make a human feel like an inferior specimen. Sometimes I forget that you're not human."  
For Zeta, it was a nice compliment, though Ro hadn't meant to be complimentary.   
Zeta asked a few more questions, like whether or not Tiff said anything about the NSA. Ro answered duly, using no more words than she had to. Her manner was subdued, and became more so by the time she saw the Ground Wire sign looming ahead, like a beacon of light, though there was no storm. Not yet. Little butterflies, and Ro thought of them as annoying moths, tortured her stomach as she opened the door to the café. It hadn't been near enough time for Tiff to arrive, but Ro scanned for her red head just the same. Zeta chose a circle booth in a back corner, and Ro slid in behind the table. It was an out of the way spot where they could converse in ease, minus the fear of eavesdropping. The loud techno music that played through the café, along with the convivial voices of the other young patrons, would muffle most any uttered word. Ro examined the Ground Wire, a place that she had, many years ago, frequented with junior high friends and even, on occasion, her foster sister. It looked exactly the same, just as any Ground Wire should.  
"Um, Zee," Ro started. She had a sudden burst of shyness at the request she was about to make. "Would you mind--uh--you know."  
"Leaving?" he filled in, eyebrows lifted. He didn't need an answer; he knew what she needed. "I'll be where you can find me, if you need me."  
"Thanks." She squeezed his forearm in appreciation as he left the booth. She saw him disappear into the back of the café, toward the kitchen and restrooms, probably out the back exit.   
Just as Zee vanished, Tiff materialized at the front door. All Ground Wires featured slim automatic doors, motion sensitive, so as soon as Tiff appeared the door opened, and, once through, the door slid shut quietly behind her. But the girl wasn't sure she really should be there, and took a step back. The door opened again. Then she looked as if nothing could keep her from the interview with her sister, and she stepped forth boldly, only to pause again. Ro observed her quietly to form a summarization of seeing her again, instead of directly calling to Tiff Morgan. Ro realized Tiff had changed, at least a little. She was no taller, no alteration in her fine shape or figure, no change of hair color or hairstyle. Her dress was more conservative than normal: basic blue jeans and a snug pale pink blouse, with a low ruffled collar of the same pink edged in white lace. A few wide bracelets dangled from her thin wrists, and her fingers and ears dripped in precious metal accessories. Tiff had always looked a fashion plate, modern nearly to extreme, so Ro was surprised at her less gaudy attire. But it wasn't the superficial appearance of Tiff that Ro had found so altered. It was Tiff Morgan as herself, in the quality with which she walked, the maturity of her character, the elegant posture of a young woman. All of this was new to Ro. She'd been too used to Tiff Morgan as a fifteen-year-old who was spoiled by a devoted father and never reproached or disciplined by a virtually invisible mother. But this Tiff Morgan was newly eighteen years of age, a high-school graduate at seventeen, and someone who was quite pleased with herself. The latter trait was not new.  
Tiff Morgan scanned her watchful brown eyes over the faces of the café, only to find Ro's giant light-blue gawk in the back of the square room. So there she was, Rosalie Rowen, the outlaw. Tiff, at first, didn't know what she should think or do. What did Ro want? Help? Money? To turn herself in? Tiff was uncertain, and the possibilities could warp her to hysterics if pondered too closely. But as she watched Ro, she noted something different in her, and that difference was a visible sadness. Ro was showing an emotion that, as a younger girl, she wouldn't dare emit. Tiff's cool heart warmed a little. She had been fond of Ro, very fond. But somehow they'd started their sisterly relationship on the wrong foot, a misguided foot. And a rift grew between them, spurred on by Ro's vulgarity and Tiff's ability to cry at everything that wasn't beautiful. Ro, Tiff thought, was beautiful, in her own way. Even vulgarity could be beautiful. It found its sacred place in nature, and it had found a welcoming sheath in Ro Rowen. Ro wore her vulgar attribute like angels wear white wings.  
They stood in front of each other, Tiff ever so slightly taller than Ro, a little wider at the hips and shoulders, a face more slender and oval. But their eyes were equally as penetrating. There was a hardness in those Morgan eyes that burned a hole in Ro. But the fire melted away and a feminine serenity developed. Tiff looped her arms over Ro and hugged her. Ro hugged back. Tiff leaned away and sat down, and Ro followed. Her knees were still weak but at least Tiff had shown up, and at least Tiff displayed kindness. Their last parting had not been so awful that either of them would presently wish they were somewhere else.   
At first the two only could smile toward each other, still in awe of their first greeting after so long a void.   
Tiff reached out her hand to the table, just so lightly smack Ro on her fingers. "You look pretty good, honey."  
"Thanks," Ro replied, her lips shaky as they formed a smile. "You do too."  
"Um," Tiff said, fidgeting with her handbag to find a credcard, "would you like something to drink?"  
"Sure, if you're buying."  
"Of course I am!" Tiff began to rise, and halted a moment with one knee bent to the booth. "What would you like?" She waved a hand when Ro opened her mouth to answer. "No, let me guess. Cherry-flavored cappuccino with extra whipped cream, those little chocolate sprinkles, and three cherries."  
Ro blushed and slunk into the cushioned back of the chair. The look was all Tiff needed to know she was right. Ro rubbed her face roughly, and then ran her hands through her hair. Tiff wasn't gone long, since the café was run automatically between a staff of humans and machines. The machines were cheaper and didn't require a raise or days off. The humans kept the patrons from running amuck. Tiff returned to her seat and handed Ro the giant mug of fresh cappuccino.  
"I ordered a little something extra for you," Tiff said. "It'll be out in a minute. Mike's bringing it."  
"Mike? Mike Swinbourne?" Ro laughed, recalling the Mike that was mentioned, someone from her and Tiff's relations long ago. "Mike still works here? He must be a manager by now."  
"He is, actually. I can't imagine him doing anything else with his life but working at Ground Wire. I don't think he can, either."  
The Mike Swinbourne in question presently arrived from the back of the café, dressed in a dirty Ground Wire uniform he wore so often it was a second skin. He found Tiff only by her calling out to him. He flipped around and first looked at Tiff, then to Ro. The "something extra" was a bowl of cherries for Ro, with a fat dollop of whipped cream in the middle. Mike set the dessert before the cute blonde he hadn't seen in ages.  
"Hello, Ro," Mike said. He smiled coyly at her. "Long time no see, eh?"  
"Sure," Ro said. She remembered the last time she'd seen Mike, how they'd had an argument, and he'd insulted her so terribly that she cried. The tears only whipped her further into anger, and she'd felt so betrayed by him. It was funny how she'd forgotten all about it until then. How to repay the debt? She kicked her leg out from under the table and it met with Mike's shin. The boy keeled over in agony, cursing and swearing. Ro broke out in laughter that would not be squelched, no matter how awful she felt for having inflicted such pain. She fell out of the booth with Tiff to help and apologize to Mike.   
"God, Ro!" Mike shouted. "Is that how you treat an old friend? Is that some kind of greeting on your home planet?" He was brought to his feet by Tiff, and he would not let Ro touch him. When she tried, he just swept her away like a gnat. Between her bubbles of laughter was a genuine mortification.   
"Oh, Mike, I'm so sorry!" Ro attempted. He finally listened to her, though he was, at the moment, far from forgiving her. "I just got so angry at you all over again for what you did to me the last time we met. Remember?"  
Mike rubbed his shin, still grimacing. "You always were one to hold a grudge. That was so long ago, Ro! You need to keep your big feet away from people's shins!" Mike reprimanded, but a faint light mood appeared, and Ro hoped he'd let it go. Before he returned to the kitchen, Mike gave Tiff a stern stare. "I always told you I thought she was crazy! Well if that doesn't prove it, what will?" He glanced at Ro and snickered. "Still, have to appreciate a woman who can kick like that. Well, see ya, Tiffers. Take care, Ro," he said under his breath.  
Ro sat down again slowly, and Tiff did the same. The other customers in the café had lost their interest in the scene. Ro couldn't believe she'd brought such unwanted attention upon herself. She looked up at Tiff, whose brown eyes were comforting, and also dearly amused. The incident was exactly what she would expect from Rosalie Rowen.  
Ro cupped her hands around the mug. Her laughter had vanished only because she'd submitted it deep down inside. "Apologize to him again, will you? Tell him I didn't mean it. And on my home planet we do a lot worse to someone than kick their shins."  
Tiff, still humored, nodded her compliance. "I'll probably be seeing him this weekend. Don't worry. He'll forget about it. At times I've wanted to do that to Mike myself."  
Ro sipped her cappuccino and examined her fine bowl of cherries. Everything seemed right in the world. Cherries made the world a beautiful place, and heaven on earth if they were covered in chocolate. Whipped cream would suffice. She ate them one by one off a fork, slowly as to savor every bite.  
Tiff stirred some sugar in her tea. "How have you been? Have you been okay?"  
"All right, for the most part. How about you?"  
"Good!" Tiff showed exultant body language to show just how good her life had been. "I graduated from school with honors. I start college in January. Oh, I have a great new car!"  
"Boyfriend?" Ro asked, just to be on the sisterly end of the conversation. Though Ro was interested in what Tiff's life had been like, what it included, whether she had a boyfriend or not mattered little but for the big picture.  
"No. No boyfriend. I'd been too preoccupied with school that I let my social life evaporate. I don't care. It was worth it." Tiff sighed and a few wisps of hair fluttered in the breath. She sipped her tea, but it was too hot to do anything but wince. "What about you? Where's your guy?"  
"I suppose you mean Zee." Ro suddenly found the cream shapes in her cappuccino extremely interesting and examined them like she would a newly discovered country.  
"Yes, that's him. I don't see him with you."  
"He isn't with me. I ditched the useless hunk of---" Ro didn't finish the sentence. She didn't know whether to say 'man' or 'metal', though either would've worked fine, and both were part of the lie. "I came alone."  
Tiff was momentarily silent. She had learned to talk less in her growing age. "So, he's just gone? You left him?"  
"Yes." Ro bit her bottom lip, her head still inclined. She rolled her bowl of cherries around on the table, already more than half were ingested. It wasn't in Ro's mind that Tiff would doubt that Zee was no longer around. Tiff had always been gullible. Certainly gullibility was an attribute a person futilely clung to, long after its use had been rubbed off.   
But Tiff didn't believe her. She studied her foster sister with a trained intuitiveness she hadn't had before. In the last year, Tiff had learned how people think, what makes them think, and what makes them do certain things, like lie.  
Ro snapped her head up as soon as Tiff opened her mouth to let out an obnoxious command.  
"You can come out now!"  
Tiff burst in laughter, and Ro was so angry and upset the tips of her ears flashed pink.  
"Tiff, don't! Tiff! I really am alone. Honest." Ro glanced around the café, hoping no one would notice. The five people there gave them an odd look, and Ro hid groaning behind her hand. The visit wasn't going so well. At least, Ro thought to herself, Zeta hadn't shown up at Tiff's suggestion. At least Zeta knew better. Ro began to wonder why she'd gone there at all, and couldn't remember. She was blinded by her angry emotions, unable to realize the truth of her presence back in 'Hicksburg'. She rose from the booth with the intention of leaving. Tiff let out her hand to stop her.  
"Don't go just yet, Ro. I'm sorry." Tiffy lowered her pillowy bottom lip in a pout. She had felt sorry for the harmless prank, and didn't think Ro would take it so seriously. Somehow she'd forgotten that Ro Rowen was a very serious-minded teen.   
Reluctant to leave Tiff without finding the answers to her questions, Ro waited. The rage was dying and she grew to recall what had brought her back to Hillsburg, all the painful reasons why. Even though Tiff had shown she could be obnoxious, Ro was sure it wasn't meant with harm. And there was Tiff to see, Tiff to talk with, hang around with, giggle with. That was what Ro had gone to Hillsburg for: a visit with her sister. With a foot under her, Ro took a seat again. Tiff was pleased Ro remained, and her apologies ballooned.  
"I'm not as gullible as I used to be," Tiff said, as though it would explain the outburst and rid Ro of the embarrassment. It did, at least a little. "I guess I didn't believe that you would ditch him. Maybe him ditch you. Not the other way around."  
Ro found this analysis puzzling. She sipped the cooled cappuccino and said nothing.  
"You care about him too much."  
Ro's reflex reaction to the statement caused her to accidentally tip the bowl of cherries noisily across the table. The bowl crash-landed on the floor. It was empty of cherries, but Ro picked it from the floor and tossed it on the table. Her temper was getting the better of her. She cleaned up cherry juice and bits of cherry pulp off the table using a napkin while Tiff went on.  
"Is he the reason you're here? Do you need something?"  
"No, it isn't him." Ro retaliated in the old vulgar tone that Tiff could remember well. "It's me, Tiff. I'm here for me."  
Tiff's face tightened. "What is it, Ro?" She was suddenly worried for her kid sister, or who would've been her kid sister if things had worked out. "I admit," Tiff began as she sank back into the booth, "I'm worried about you, little dear."  
"Tiffy," Ro said and leaned over the table, her presence agitated, "I'm worried about me. Look, is there anything else you can tell me about my family? You told me about my brother, that was nice of you, and I haven't forgotten it. But I need to know more." Ro felt a little awful not telling Tiffany the entire truth. Tiff didn't know that Ro knew her brother, knew her parents and grandparents were dead. Ro wanted to know about extended family. And she wasn't yet comfortable in front of Tiffany to say that she had been the primary reason for the Hillsburg visit.  
"Ro, I don't know anything." Tiff was startled by the urgency in Ro's voice. It was a desperation. Tiff wasn't aware of how desperate Ro Rowen could be, but she was catching a glimpse. At times in the last few years, she'd even doubted that Ro was capable of real human emotion. Now that she was seeing it, the fragility of invincible Ro was upsetting. "Ro," Tiff spoke gently, and took her sister's hand. "What's going on? You can tell me."  
Ro wondered. Could she tell Tiff? Maybe a little wouldn't hurt, but a lot wouldn't hurt only Tiff, it would hurt her, and too much. But, even if she was prepared to shock her sister, Ro couldn't do it at the last minute. She didn't want her privacy violated. "It's just--driving me crazy." She realized then how foolish it'd been to think Tiff would know anything.  
Tiff huffed, her lips drawn tight, her hand still in Ro's. She dipped her head into her chest, closed her eyes as if in a moment of meditation. "The only reason you came back to Hillsburg was to see if I could help you find your family?" Tiff lifted her eyes to Ro slowly as the words were murmured.  
It wasn't the only reason. Ro hesitated. "Well. . . ."  
Tiff squeezed Ro's hand tighter, and the movement sent the bracelets jingling together. "I can't believe it." Her tone was entirely made of astonishment.  
"Why is it so hard to believe?"  
Tiff waved her free hand. "It's not that. It's you, Rosa." Tiff tugged her hand from Ro and set it under the table in her lap. "I'm in awe of you coming back here just to find out something that I may not even know--that I don't know. How come you've always been so brave?"  
"It's not all bravery," Ro told her, finding some way to disenchant the compliment. She felt like such a liar; a fake; a would-be knight. "If anything does happen to me while I'm here, you'd think it was stupid to come back. As long as I'm safe, you think I'm brave."  
Tiff frowned a little. It was interesting how a certain perception can change enormously by the slightest action.  
"I know, Tiff, that you can't help me. And that's all right. I didn't really expect anything."  
Tiff was hesitant to speak. She kept still in the booth, as though glass had had been poured over her. Her hand moved across her chest, and she grabbed her opposite upper arm with tight fingers. A wave of thoughtfulness passed Tiff silently, and Ro caught the tail end of it.  
"What is it, Tiff?" Ro urged her on, anxious and tense, but also oddly content. She had come to Hillsburg with no expectations on the outer rims of her family tree, but to see Tiff. Ro had wanted to see Tiffany Morgan because she'd missed her foster sister. The ability to sit across a booth from her sent Ro a vast contentment. And yet, something was plaguing Tiffany's mind. Ro hoped she wouldn't get more than she wanted from the visit.  
Tiff toyed with her cup, nearly empty of jasmine tea, and Ro caught the faint, sweet smell of the herbal drink. But the cup was set aside and Tiff straightened her shoulders. "A while back someone came to see us."  
"How far back?"  
"Oh," Tiff's eyes rolled around as she thought, "five months or so. I think it was in the spring."  
"Go on."  
"Well, I was upstairs in my room studying when Dad answered the door. It was a woman. And he didn't even let her in the house, so I couldn't eavesdrop. I had to listen to what I could at the top of the stairs. Not the same as my real eavesdropping, you know." Here Tiff paused to wink mischievously. "I didn't catch her name or where she was from, but definitely from the east coast somewhere, with that accent. She wanted to know about you. Dad said you hadn't been around in a year. This interested her, since she seemed to know what happened the last time you came to town."  
"Yeah," Ro said, "I'm like the proverbial Maryland tornado when I'm around. Did you see her? What'd she look like?"  
"Didn't get much of a look at her. I think she had dark hair, but it was all pulled back so I couldn't really be sure. Plus, it was in the evening so it was kinda dark."  
"Was she NSA?"  
"No," Tiff declared with a firm shake of her head. "I know that much. Dad would've told me so. He said she was just some lawyer or something who wanted to know where you'd gone."  
Ro was strangely relieved as well as repulsed. "At least it wasn't the NSA. I wonder who she was?"  
Tiff just shrugged. "Your guess is as good as mine, honey."  
"You never saw her again?"  
"No. She took off in a black sedan. That was the last I saw of her. She and Dad only talked for a couple of minutes. He wouldn't tell her much. Well," Tiff thought, "it wasn't that he wouldn't but he couldn't."  
"What kind of things did she ask him?"  
Tiff leaned back in the seat, as though to relax from the purging of such secrets. She brushed back strands of naturally red hair, which, even in the dim light, shone with an unparalleled beauty. "She asked if you were alone the last time we saw you. She asked if you knew anything about your family. She asked if we expected to see you again."  
"I can see why the sheriff couldn't answer those questions."  
"Yes, I know. They're not easy questions to answer. Sometimes I wonder if this lady didn't know that and just went there as some kind of trick. But, then again, I can't figure out why she would do something like that."  
Ro digested what implications and theories she could about the mysterious lady. There wasn't anything else that Tiff could provide that would help. "What about the NSA?"  
Tiff's expression grew a shade or two darker, as if in eclipse. "They've shown up a few times. Handfuls of times. I was even thinking of having a restraining order placed on any NSA agent who comes within fifty feet of me." Tiff inclined over the table, her confidence for Ro only. "They have followed me a few times. I've seen them." She leaned into the seat again.  
Ro was horrified, too sick to think she hadn't even considered shadowing a possibility that day. But, yet, nothing had happened. And Tiffany had only said a few times, not always.  
"They wouldn't show up now, honey," Tiff assured. "I'd have seen them if they tried. I've ditched them so many times. I'll keep doing it, too."  
"That's dangerous, Tiff. I don't like it."  
Tiff shrugged, taking the shadowing by NSA agents lightly. "I think it's kind of exciting. My chance to play spy. They're just stupid field agents, anyway. Mere plebes. Not the real thing. If the NSA sends children to follow me, then I'll find a way to dupe them. Fools. They deserve it."  
"When they went to your house last, what did they want?"  
"Your things," Tiff said reluctantly, and clicked her tongue as if in sympathy.   
Ro's insides hurt as she became mournful. Her things touched by disgusting NSA agents! "How vile," she uttered, and Tiff snickered.  
"I couldn't help save your stuff. They took everything! Clothes, books, your school work, just--everything. Dad had to turn over all your foster papers, too. I think he was upset by that. He didn't say so, but I know Dad. His face was red all over when he gave that agent the envelope with all your information in it. Well, what information there was. It wasn't much."  
"It wasn't just my foster papers," Ro told Tiff, trying to keep out the sad waver in her voice as she spoke. "It was also my birth certificate. Or, at least, part of it." Ro set her stern stare at Tiff. "I don't exist, really. It's something that infuriates the NSA. My lack of identity is probably the only reason I'm still alive."  
Tiff was understanding, though she couldn't begin to know the deep loneliness that existed in Ro, or what it was like to be grateful for every new day that arrives.  
"Who were these agents?"  
"I don't remember their names."  
"Did you recognize them? When did they come?"  
"I didn't know any of them. They weren't the ones who were there before. It was just a man and a woman, wet behind the ears. Obviously fresh from training. As to when they did this, it wasn't anytime recently. I have to say about ten months ago. Not long after you and your friend showed up."  
"H'mm," Ro said, then topped off her cappuccino.  
"If you're finished," Tiff started to say cheerfully, "we can go out and wander around for a bit. Might be kinda nice, just the two of us. There's not much around here that's new to see."  
Ro gave her foster sister a tiny grin, powdered lightly with uncertainty. "I'd like that, sure."  
Tiff gathered her handbag and together they left the booth. Instead of departing from the front door right away, Tiff went to the back, to the kitchen, and opened the employee only door. "Hey, Mikey!" she shouted. Mike was standing not far from her, but she wanted to shout it anyway. He sprang to Tiff at once, ever loyal to his school friendship, though he had graduated a year ahead of the popular former homecoming queen Tiffy Morgan. "We're heading out now," Tiff told him.   
Mike looked at Ro over Tiff's shoulder. "How long are you in town for, Ro?"  
"No time at all. Probably leaving in a few hours. I just came to talk to Tiff."  
"Are you ever coming back?"  
"No," Ro answered, her mouth drawn tightly. "Once you make it out of Hillsburg, you never come back."  
Mike gave a cynical snicker, appreciating the comment and the irony. He had his roots firmly established in Hillsburg, and he would never leave Maryland. The rest of the world didn't matter to him like it always had to Ro. He stood in front of the girl and analyzed her, sized her up, to see some change in her. The sharp edges were softened and the eyes glistened with less anger, more appreciation for life. "People have to do what people have to do to find themselves in this crazy world. It looks like you're getting there."  
Ro's nod was grave. "I'm still working on it, Swinbourne. Forgive me for kicking you?"  
"Absolutely," he said, a charming smile for her to see. "You can drop in anytime you want and kick me some more." Mike was quiet for a moment, then said, "I probably won't see you again, will I?"  
Ro shook her head. The idea was unlikely.  
"Great," he said. Then he grabbed Ro's shoulders and drew her to him, he and kissed her flush on the mouth. Ro scampered back, tempted again to kick him in the same shin. If she hadn't burst into mad laughter, she might have. "That'll last you awhile," Mike explained, and saluted to her as he fell away to the kitchen. The door flopped in his wake. Ro lurched forward and hit it. The door swung in and swatted Mike unexpectedly on the back of his head. He turned around, rubbing his new wound, but just made a taunting pucker face at Ro.   
Stunned and blushing, Ro grabbed Tiff by the elbow to exit the café.   
"What an odd little boy," Tiff said as they were greeted by the sunshine of noon. Of course, Mike was not a little boy. He was at least nineteen, years older than Ro. Juvenile to his the very last corner of his personality, however. "I always thought he had a crush on you."  
"He didn't have to kiss me," Ro scowled. She rubbed her lips with the side of her hand, as if to rid it of the intimate touch. "I don't like to be kissed."  
Tiff smiled secretly as they stepped down the sidewalk of Seventh Street. "Oh, lighten up, honey. Was just a little innocent kiss, that's all. I bet it's been years since you had a good smooch."  
Ro didn't wish to discuss it and tried to change the subject. The tangent only amused Tiff further.  
"I love to see you flustered," Tiff said. "There was a time I never would've thought Rosalie Rowen would get flustered by anything. A boy comes along, gives her a little kiss, and what's she do? Rosalie Rowen gets flustered." She was suddenly more serious. "A girl needs to be kissed every now and then. Leave room in your life for kisses, Ro. They're such nice things. They remind you of what it's like to be a--a human. More specifically, what it's like to be a woman. I'm telling you to never resist the opportunity to be embraced. Kisses are healthy."  
Ro didn't need lessons in affection. She knew about affection, and to know it thoroughly was to realize what she liked and didn't like. She thought back to what Zeta had said to Julie Dumes about affection, and in a way his explanation fit Ro's own belief. Living without affection would frighten her, but it had to be the right kind of affection. Not every human was capable of giving it properly, and not every human was capable of accepting what was given.  
Another attempt was made by Ro to vary the dialogue during a minute of silence. "Tell me about college, Tiff. What are you going to do? Where you going?"  
This was something Tiff opened herself to. She was always willing to discuss her future plans, and her gradual take-over of the entire world. It was the greed and exuberance of youth coming through loudly. "I got a partial scholarship to Bayville University."  
"Really?" Ro was genuinely surprised. "A scholarship?"  
"Yes!" Tiff's cheeks pinkened, and her freckles stood out against the color. "Who would've thought, right? Tiffy Morgan as a smart girl, geeky book-queen who won a scholarship! I worked hard for it. I wanted to."  
"I think that's great, Tiff. Where is Bayville?"  
"Up north a ways. Southern New York. I'm glad, frankly, to leave Hillsburg. I think it'll be good for me. Spreading my wings, and all that." Tiffy rummaged through her deep and wide handbag, which carried most of her precious possessions, and lifted out a business card for Bayville University. She handed it to Ro. "I'll be starting there next semester, but classes won't begin until January. The plan is for me to be there just after the start of the year. But I guess I can't really count on plans, right? Anyway, I don't have a dorm assignment yet, but if you call the school I'm sure they'll tell you where I am." Tiff's sincerity and eager desire to be of some use to Ro was apparent. "And you must call if you need something, okay? Promise? It's the only way I can get in touch with you. I never know where you are from one moment to the next. I worry about you. I think about you lots, Rosa. Wonder if you're okay. Wonder if you're safe and--"  
"And warm?"  
Tiff nodded, blinking slowly.  
"I am," Ro said and shoved the university card in the pocket of her jeans. An old memory of that same idea trickled through Ro's mind, when she'd yelled something similar once to Agent Bennett. "Zeta takes care of me, Tiff. I don't do it all on my own, even if I try. And don't think I don't try."  
Tiff had no doubts as to Zeta's parenting competency. She knew what devotion existed in Zeta for Ro's welfare. "Well, you don't look as well as the last time I saw you. Stressed out about something?"  
"Just this need to find a connection to the past. I met a Rowen in Oregon named Gwennie. I don't think we're related, but she said the Rowens were from Ireland, and many of them went back there during Ireland's revolution. Lots of them died during the rebellion in twenty-nine. Is that when the rebellion started, in twenty-nine?"  
"I think so. No one's really a hundred percent positive. Why?"  
"That would've been around the time that I was placed in the orphanage."  
"But that happened in California, a long ways from Ireland. You think there's a connection?"  
It mattered little to Ro, but she pursued the subject only to know Tiffany's insight, if there was any. "I don't know. I wish I could find out."  
"Maybe you should go to Ireland."  
Ro couldn't help but laugh at the suggestion. To go to Ireland would mean certain death for all that Ro had been fighting for during the last two years. "They're not going to let me out of the country."  
Tiff realized the dangers of attempting to leave the country when you're wanted by the most secret government intelligence organization, and didn't require an explanation. "I hope you find them, Rosa. I do. Does Zeta know?"  
"Know what?"  
"How sick it makes you."  
"Oh," Ro looked away, finding the angles of the downtown so familiar in strange ways, yet a slight angle would be completely new. Some things had changed. Others had remained the same. "He probably knows better than anyone. But it isn't that I want to find them. Wanting it isn't enough. It's almost necessary." Ro sighed and crossed her arms tensely. "I've been having problems lately. There's this huge aching need in me to know who they were. I can't explain it, not really. I've had an okay life, considering . . . And it's not as though I don't have anything to keep me busy, because I do. But I keep thinking about them. I wonder what they were like, what characteristics I might've gotten from them, whose hair color I have, or if my dad had blue eyes. It's the kind of stuff that the non-orphans take advantage of. I just want to know . . . whether they would've liked me as I am now, if they'd be proud of me." She kept out the part about believing she was hallucinating, about being so tired she could barely see straight. Lying was easy, Ro thought. Once you start with a lie, it just multiplies into an infinite spectrum, like a contagious virus that infects personal morals.  
Tiff stopped and regarded Ro intensely. She touched Ro's arm and pressured it with caring fingers. "Are you sick? You're not dying, are you? Oh, please say you're not dying!"  
Tiff's theatrics amused Ro, but irked her at the same time. Ever the actress, Tiff often cried at just about anything. Ro never cried if she could help it. In that way, like so many others, they were opposites. "Relax, Tiffy. I'm not dying. I've been a little sick, but I'm not dying. I'm sure that would piss off the NSA, though."  
They walked on in silence for several feet, past some shops that Ro recognized and had once leisurely browsed in. Now they hardly looked appealing, and all the world was changed forever. Hillsburg would never be the same to her again. Ro thought this realization would bring her peace, but instead pity touched her. Another something from her past was lost.  
"I understand a little of how you must feel," Tiffany said, and she peered at her friend out the corner of her rotund eyes. "I can't fathom what it must be like to grow up without a family. I mean a real family. I've always had Dad there for me, to love me. I don't know what I'd do if I didn't have parental love, or how I would've turned out."  
All of that sounded pretty, Ro thought. And, in a way, it was a backhanded compliment. Tiff had intended it as such. She continued.  
"If you should find other Rowens, do you think you would love them?"  
"That depends."  
"Would you move to be near them?"  
"No. I think I've chosen my life, at least my life as it is right now. I know what's most important to me. My freedom, for example."  
"And Zeta's freedom?"  
"His, too."  
"What would Zeta do without you, Ro? I don't think he's capable of continuing his mission for freedom without you."  
Ro hadn't thought about it. Or, when she had, at rare moments of complete somberness, she scratched the thoughts away. "What would you do, Tiff, if you had to make the decision?"   
"A decision like that? Between family and the quest for freedom?" Tiff gaped into the distance, her mouth tenderly ajar, as if the idea was too horrifying for her delicate human brain. "I guess I would go to whomever could love me the most, to whomever I could love the most, to be fulfilled as a person. I think that's everyone's quest in life: to find fulfillment."  
Ro was startled by the beauty of the response, so eloquently stated by someone she'd never thought was eloquent. "And it depends on what that fulfillment is."  
"Of course."  
"And it changes sometimes. One minute you think you know what it is that you want most out of life, and then the next day what you wanted turns suddenly repulsive."  
"Yes, that happens. You're growing up, aren't you, Ro?"  
Ro found the question humorous. She laughed a little at its absurdity. "I have to. I guess it's the way things just go sometimes." Ro decided she'd better change the subject before the lump in her throat expanded and sent her eyes flooding with tears she'd no wish to shed or show. She couldn't figure out why her life seemed so sad and dreary all of the sudden. "What are you studying? In college, I mean."  
"Don't know yet. Do you have an opinion? Now's your chance to share it."  
They discontinued the purposeless jaunt and chose to sit on a bench in Hillsburg Park, a small picturesque square set in the south center of downtown Hillsburg. There were tall trees that provided ample shade for midday picnics and the children running like ants on the playground. Ro remembered the park, with the distant recollection that she had started her brief career as a hoodlum there, scratching graffiti on one of the swing set bars. To Ro's knowledge, the graffiti was still there.  
"Child psychology." The two words just poured out of Ro's mouth, as though she wasn't even aware of it, like an instrument of someone else's voice and opinion. "It might be something you're good at."  
Tiff looped her arm over Ro's and tilted her head to rest on her sister's shoulder. Ro's idea of studying child psychology was not far from Tiff's own thoughts. She liked the idea of helping orphans, since she had longed to help Ro, even if it meant having arguments with her father, the impervious Sheriff. They had antithetical views on Rosalie Rowen, sending them into altercations with no resolution.   
"I could see you being a journalist, too," Ro added. Tiff did have a certain creative callousness, the same characteristic in most successful journalists of the decade.   
Tiff wasn't so sure about journalism. She didn't like words; they lied so easily and betrayed unintentionally due to ignorance. "What would you do, Ro, if you went to college?"  
"Astrophysics," was Ro's tart reply. She watched the kids dance through the cropped green grass, and felt the cool September breeze hit her face, with that luscious Maryland scent. It was almost peaceful. Almost.  
Tiff snickered, lifted her head and looked at Ro with her eyebrows scrunched together. "No! Really? You?"  
"Sure," Ro said. "Why not? I like all that stuff."  
"You do not!" Tiff insisted, managing to still find it funny that tough Rosalie Rowen should find science interesting. "You probably don't even know what astrophysics is."   
Ro did know, and told Tiff so with a scholarly and arrogant intonation. "Astrophysics is the study of celestial objects and events. How they developed. Where they came from. Why they're there. What they're made of. Nebulae and--and such."  
Tiff scoffed at Ro teasingly, and smacked her on the arm. "Smarty. I think Dad was really wrong about you. You will make something of yourself, when you're given the chance. It's in you. I believe you're a lot smarter than you let on."  
"Being book-smart isn't everything, not if you don't have the common sense to use what you learn." Ro's eye caught the phone booth on the corner, empty, and felt the inclination to make a call that was a little overdue. "Tiff, would you buy me five minutes of secure-line time?"  
"All right," Tiff agreed. "What for? Or is that top secret and I can't know or you'll have to kill me?"  
"It's not _that_ important. Just something I have to do."  
Tiff purchased the secure-line time for twenty-five dollars, and then handed the phone over to Ro. An operator hooked Ro up with the long-distance number. While the phone changed lines Ro shoved the piece of paper with Batty Gwennie's info on it back in her jeans' pocket. The line rang a few times, and, finally, just when Ro feared the old woman wouldn't answer, the video screen came to life. Only it wasn't Batty Gwennie's elderly face that appeared. It was a stranger's. Ro wondered idly if she had gotten connected to the wrong number.  
"Can I help you?" the woman asked.  
"I'm looking for Mrs. Gwennie Rowen. Is she there?"  
The woman on the end of the line titled her head in a way that turned Ro's body cold. She knew almost immediately what was coming.  
"I'm sorry, but Mrs. Gwennie has passed away."  
Ro's heart pounded against her ribs and her breathing labored. She was shocked. "When?"  
"Last night."  
"How?"  
"Appears to be a stroke. Were you a friend of hers?"  
"Yes, a good friend. Could you tell me if maybe she had a message for a Miss Ro Rowen?"  
Ro saw the strange woman's head nod negatively. "Nothing like that. But things have been in a crazy state around here. If you call back another time, someone might know something. If no one's here, you can call the Glenview police. They might have information for you."  
Ro didn't like the idea, but she might do what she could to find out whether Gwennie got in touch with the Cryobin employee acquaintance or not. That information was vital for Zeta's search to find Dr. Selig. Ro would go to any length to get it, maybe even call a police department. She'd even call Cryobin if she thought it'd do any good, though Dr. Selig no longer worked there. Someone knew where he was and what happened to him, and Batty Gwennie might've been one of those people, even if she was just at the tip of the circle of people who knew. Gwennie had given Zeta some hope when Ro couldn't. Now that line of hope was severed. "Who are you?" Ro suddenly asked the face in the screen.  
"Maze Rowen, Mrs. Gwennie's niece. What'd you say your name was?"  
"Ro Rowen."  
"Any relation?"  
"Don't think so. Just a coincidence."  
"You look like a Rowen. You look even a bit like Gwennie did back in her youth." A voice from off-screen called to the Maze Rowen who was on the line. She looked away to the source of the yahooing then turned back to the vidphone camera. "I've got to go. Call back in a few days, Miss Ro. Someone might know something. What was the message about?"  
"Oh, I can't really say. Goodbye, Maze. I'm sorry about your aunt."  
Maze Rowen said a farewell and the picture disappeared. Ro slammed down the vidphone screen and let out a very deep, very long sigh. The pounding of her heart was still abnormally rapid. She stood there a minute, stilly, and allowed the shock to seep through, into a final denial phase. She stumbled out of the phone booth and into Tiff's grasping arms. Tiff was alarmed by Ro's pale appearance, and the warnings her sister had uttered about recent ill-health ran through her mind.   
"Ro, honey!" Tiff said, trying to revive the girl to a state of normal consciousness. She hadn't fainted, but there was the look about her, an alabaster meekness that suggested fainting was not far behind. Tiff set Ro to the grass gently and checked her pulse by palpating the wrist. It was shallow and weak, but accelerated.  
Ro could feel the world spinning around her, and she felt like she was caught in the center, so she could see it spin and spin. The edges blurred and color faded. Everything seemed to fall over everything else. Ro fought with all her strength to keep herself in the present, to escape the sink into a blank, black void. It had happened to her too often lately, and she was determined it wouldn't capture her again without a decent fight. She brought what she believed to be a massive amount of air into her lungs, but Tiff saw it as only a normal breath. Ro covered her eyes with her hand, the sun distracting her, blinding her, as she peeled one giant scream from deep down inside.   
"Zeta!" 

--

Note

Bayville University  
A nonexistent school I named after the X-men town.


	18. Eighteen

18) 

Tiff patted Ro's limp wrist in a vain attempt to bring Ro back to the land of consciousness. She had fainted, as Tiff suspected she would. Some strangers began to gather, and one of them was a nurse who tried to find out what was wrong with the unconscious girl. Most of the people in the circumference of the phone booth had heard the scream she'd let out just prior to fainting, like the yell had sucked out her last bit of strength. The nurse was asking questions of Tiff about Ro, and Tiff's mind was tumbling with responses and worries and anxieties. And, most of all, she wondered where Zeta was. She knew he was around, he was close. Even if Ro denied it, Tiff knew. Ro would not leave Zeta, not for anything. And Zeta would not leave Ro.  
Zeta was not far behind. He'd followed Ro and Tiffany Morgan throughout their walk, keeping a steady distance of at least fifty feet. But he had allowed Ro a greater tether as soon as she and Tiff sat in Hillsburg Park. She was a hundred feet away or more, as Zeta chose to stay behind, where he leaned against a tree, watching the people and wondering about their daily lives. Occasionally, he would let his eyes drift over to Ro just to make sure she was still there. She seemed to be getting along so well with Tiff that Zeta was afraid to interrupt. From the distance it was unclear what they were saying, even to Zeta's acute hearing, though some words stood out in bold. Zeta mostly ignored the conversation and allowed Ro her time with Tiff. But when he saw Ro head to the phone booth, he grew moderately alarmed, but still kept his distance. It was when he saw Ro coming out of the booth, take a few meager steps and awkwardly fall into Tiff's arms that Zeta began to hasten his direction toward Ro, on the opposite side of the park. His footing faltered a moment when he heard her scream his name. Then, for a scary moment, his aural sense seemed to malfunction, because he heard nothing. The aural world faded back slowly, returning to normal.   
The processors performed a subsequent standard systems check as a result the brief malfunction. "All systems functioning," his display told him. It ran through the list: "Visual receptors: passed. Aural receptors: passed." Zeta ignored the evaluation as it looped on.  
He pushed his way through the wall of bodies around Ro quickly but politely, pardoning himself as he did. The synthoid's human-shaped fingers clenched tightly as soon as he saw Ro lying on the ground. Tiffany looked up at him. His was presence so commanding and abrupt that she immediately noticed he was there. Her heart felt relief. If Zeta was there, Ro would be better.   
"Zee," Tiff said to him, and the robot met her gaze, reflecting the concern each shared, "I don't know what happened. She says she's been sick."  
"She's not just sick," Zeta added as he knelt to Ro and touched her hot forehead with his cool fingertips. "She's suffering from exhaustion."  
The male nurse was grateful for the insider's presence. "You her, uh--"  
"Friend," Zee answered. He squinted. "Who're you?"  
Tiff set her hand on Zeta's arm to calm him down. He was acting snippety, unlike himself. She knew why. "Relax, Zee. He's here to help."  
Zeta hastily moved his stare at Tiffany. The analysis of her presence did not take him long. "Yes, I know."  
Ro began to lift through her fog. Zeta and Tiff watched her in hope, while the nurse was ready with a suggestion that the girl be taken to a hospital. Ro fluttered open her lids, the pale lashes set to pale cheeks again, but briefly, until they stayed open and she examined the faces around her. There was Tiff, with the obligatory set of tears in her eyes and dampened cheeks, a lightly running nose that she dabbed dry with the back of her hand. Zeta as Zee was staring over her, that tough, robotic appearance in his expression, his manner most forbearing. He'd always shown such great patience with her. The world had stopped spilling upon itself long enough for her to smile up at him, terribly glad for their presence, for her friends' support.   
The voice of the stranger broke her concentration. "You all right, Miss?"  
"Fine," she answered coldly, unemotionally. She wasn't sure she was fine, but she would be fine, no matter what it took to get there or make someone else believe it. "What happened, or doesn't anyone know?"  
Some of the crowd began to disperse one-by-one until it was just the four of them. The male stranger had intentions of making sure the girl was all right before he left. He asked her if she wished to be admitted to the hospital, but wasn't surprised the idea was scorned in vehemence. But Ro kindly shook the gentleman's hand, thanking him for his benevolence to an ill stranger. In turn, Zee and Tiff uttered their gratitude as well. With his uncanny foreign accent, he assured him it was nothing, that he was only grateful to be of use, marking the coincidence that he'd happened to be passing by. When the tall stranger walked away, he knew their thanks and the girl's restored health was enough payment for him.  
Ro inquired again what had happened. Tiff explained the moment of Ro's fall briefly. "You screamed and then fainted. Now, here we are."  
"I screamed?" Ro struggled to remember this part. "Why?"  
"Don't know," Tiff shrugged. "You wanted Zee. He heard, as he is never far away. He ran. You got him."  
Ro began to lift herself from the green grass. It left blade indentations on her skin. The back of her arms were spotted from the obscure pattern. She ran her hand over one. She suddenly remembered what had happened. "Oh, that's right," she murmured to herself. In a moment she had her arms over Zee's shoulders, hugging him tightly. "I'm sorry, Zee. "  
He patted her back gently. "Why?"  
"I called Mrs. Gwennie's place," she said, looking him in the eye, "to see if she had that info."  
Tiff set her hands on her hips, wondering what all this jargon was about. They were full of adventures and mysteries. At least she knew who Mrs. Gwennie was, or at least vaguely.  
"What'd she say?" Zeta prompted.  
"She didn't say anything. That is," Ro sighed and glanced away a moment, too upset at the misfortune, "she _couldn't_ say anything."  
Zeta's hands slipped from Ro's back as he stood. He took a few steps in a circle, then reversed, the tail of his jacket flapping. Consternation and horror was all over him, and he expressed the dismay well for a robot. "You mean she's dead."  
"That's right." Ro expounded on the details, what little she'd heard from the woman named Maze Rowen. Zeta forced himself to listen, though it filled him with acute disappointment. And Ro felt keenly the same disappointment as if it was his own, and maybe more than what Zeta knew, since he was not constructed to feel. Yet there was no denying he was mournful, the loss of the news he so wanted pained him. A great part of that hurt was not pretend. Most of it was genuine. Something inside of him hurt, and he didn't know for certain what it was. His conscience? His embryonic soul? He didn't know. But it was a strange sensation to him, and one he did not wish to develop. Ro's look to him was a comfort, and he touched the side of her face to show their mutual mortification at the unexpected news and the fateful murder of their hope. He let his hand fall and turned to Tiff. She took a step back, and Zeta attempted to seem less formidable in order to relax Miss Morgan.  
"Tiffany," he began serenely, "I have something I want you to do for us. Would you do it?"  
"What is it, Zee?" Tiff wasn't entirely sure she would appreciate anything Zee asked her to do. But she'd test the waters first to find out. It might be an adventure of her own.  
"I'd like you to look up information about someone."  
Tiff lifted a shoulder haply, thinking that seemed easy enough to do, and she was excellent at research. "No problem. Who do you have in mind?"  
"Does the name Alistair Dumes mean anything to you?"  
"No," Tiff responded, her brow together, as though still thinking about it. "Maybe a little. Who is he? Friend or foe?"  
Ro answered instead of allowing Zeta to do all the talking. Although she was against the pursuit of someone who seemed as harmless as Dumes, she couldn't help but admit she was curious, especially about his past. "He's an important figure in the Rÿyennas Corporation. Lives in Seapoint. Seems to have a seedy history. We'd like to know more about him."  
"I don't know the name, but Rÿyennas is familiar. Why do you want to know more about him?" Tiffany didn't expect an answer. They always blew off her questions just when she was nearly at the door which would lead to everything. To her surprise, Ro elaborated.  
"Zee thinks he's trying to kill us."  
Zeta resented the assumption, but then found that he did believe Alistair Dumes wanted to kill them, though he had no proof. "It's just speculation," he said to Tiff. "A possibility. Not a fact."  
Ro stuck out her tongue to Zeta. "Same thing."  
Tiff chuckled her uncomfortable disbelief. "You're not serious. Don't you two have enough trouble as it is? Why would someone from the Rÿyennas Corporation want you two--you know--killed?"  
Zeta and Ro said in synchronization that they didn't know why. The trio began to head from the park, back into the historic brown stone, brick and glass buildings of the small city's shop district. Traffic was at its highest midday point, with the workforce returning from lunch, and even a greater number were pounding the pavement to return to their desk by one that afternoon, a decent ten minutes away.   
Tiffany walked leisurely between Zeta and Ro and glanced at them equally, then nodded. "I'll look into it for you, sure."  
"Thanks," Ro said. "I'll call you sometime to see what you've found out. I'll call you before you leave for Bayville."  
"Would that make me wanted, if I aided you guys? Like, an accessory or something. An accomplice."  
"That's my title," Ro said, flashing a big grin. The joke went over Tiffany's head, but Zeta understood. "I wouldn't worry about it, Tiff. It's only bad if someone catches you. Besides, who's going to know?"  
Ro let out a little yelp when Zeta grabbed her arm, then Tiff's, and threw them into the nearest store, a woman's clothing boutique.  
"What the---" Ro began, but was hushed when Zeta put his hand over her mouth to silence her.  
"Problem," he whispered. After giving the store a scan, he saw that they were the only patrons viewable, and only the female employee behind the counter noted their peculiar presence. The less they were seen the better it was. It always worked that way.   
"What is it, Zee?" Ro had had enough excitement for one day, but she knew it was still early. Plenty could yet happen, and it looked like it was about to.   
"Company, Ro." Zeta peered between the metal blinds of the store window, the girls hunched behind him. "Tiffany," he said, a little bit of synthoid humor in his voice, "have you ever met Orrin West?"  
Ro griped and rolled her eyes.  
Tiff looked extremely confused. "No, don't think I have. Well, didn't he end up in our tree once? I can't remember."  
Despite the tense moment, Ro chortled. "If there's a tree and an Orrin West, there's an Orrin West in a tree."  
"What?" Tiff demanded. "What riddles! Who is he? Some kind of monkey?"  
Zeta answered. "You're about to meet him, because he's coming this way. I think he's seen you, but not us. And even if he has seen us it won't matter."  
Tiffany found this explanation even more beguiling than when she knew nothing of the situation. She hoped Ro would be able to shed more light on what was going on. Ro squeezed Tiff's shoulders, her animation brilliant.  
"He means we have to go, Tiff. We have to go now. Orrin West is an agent. He'll be looking for you. He'll be looking for us."  
Tiff inspired a shaky, frightened breath, and her lips quivered against her will. "But, Ro---"  
"What's the quickest way out of town?" Zeta asked, not caring that he was interrupting Tiffany's sentence.  
"There isn't--I mean--I don't know!"  
Ro wondered why Tiff began to sift through her handbag, but wondered no longer when Tiff handed her a car remote and plastic card key.  
"The quickest way out of town is in my car."  
"Tiff!" Ro exclaimed. "Not your new car!"  
"It's not my new car!" Tiff managed a murky, sly smile. "Did you think that if I was going to see you I'd take my brand new car? Think I'm that stupid? I brought the old one in case something like this happened. You take it. It's in front of the gift shop on Sixth. Go on, Ro!" Tiff shouted, and pushed her sister away at the shoulder. "I don't want anything to happen to you if I can help it."  
"Run, Ro," Zeta said, perfectly placid.  
"Zee, what are you---"  
"I'll catch up with you. Just go. Out the back. Run."  
There was no time for a goodbye between Ro and Tiff, but they shared a profound millisecond of silent farewell before Ro turned and ran the length of the store, into the back just to find the exit. She found herself in the dirty back alley, alone. Hillsburg was a different world to her, especially since it'd been so long that she was in danger within its vicinity, and being alone in that ugly face of danger was something she'd never dealt with before.  
Zeta had little time to prepare for the unexpected arrival of NSA agent Orrin West, but as long as Ro was far from the building and on her way to safety, he could then be concerned with saving himself. For a rapid second, as fast as his processors would allow, he concocted a doable but hardly ingenious plan.  
"Better meet him outside, Tiffany. If you don't mind." Zeta titled his head to see through the blinds, and caught West's appearance across the street, a couple shops north. "He's looking for you now. It's better if you don't hide. Wait until he gets a little closer. I'll say when."  
"What's he going to do to me?" Tiff inquired, trying to keep the childish tone from her voice. She was slightly afraid but more intrigued.  
"He'll do nothing to you." Zeta analyzed Tiff's reaction, and found that she didn't believe him. "You're too valuable to them, as Ro's sister."  
"So I'm just supposed to make some small talk with him, then, while you slip out the back?"  
Zeta nodded. He didn't think she would come up with a better idea. After another dip and slant of his head, Zeta saw West crossing the street in a flat jog. "He's coming. You can go now. Don't worry, you'll be fine." Zeta took a step to turn away, but Tiffany stopped him.  
"Zee," she said, her head titled from the weight of her heart, "take care of Ro, please."  
"Of course."  
"She's a better person now. You've changed her." Tiffany opened the door and stepped out, giving no extra explanation.  
Zeta waited, perhaps unwisely, hidden mostly behind a garment rack. He casted a glance at the employee. She just cleared her throat and shifted her posture so she was looking the opposite way, all with intention. Glad for the woman's deliberate disinterest, Zeta focused on what was happening outside the shop, on the sidewalk, where Tiff and West met. He wanted to know why West was in Hillsburg, and if the NSA knew he and Ro were there.  
All shops in historic Hillsburg had manual doors, instead of the slick automated ones that slid aside. The old doors were supposed to incorporate the charm of architectural history, already represented throughout the town. Tiff just thought they were an archaic nuisance. As soon as she pushed open the door, Tiff took a step to the left, having held the door open when she stepped around it. But while she turned, her head was over her shoulder, looking behind for Agent West.   
At that moment, West stepped directly into the shop's door that had suddenly opened on him. He coiled and called in pain, grunting, then looked up angrily to reprimand the fool who'd not bothered to look before opening the door. "Excuse me! Why don't you look where you're going?" The antagonism for a stranger left him when he saw his culprit, and found himself lost in the brown doe-like eyes of the young woman who stood before him, nearly as shocked as he. It was the eyes that he saw first, with long lashes and a perfect almond shape. But then he saw her nose was doused with sun-freckles, and he found them captivating, and they didn't suit the woman's elegant appearance at all, with their juvenile presence. He thumbed through his suddenly limited vocabulary to find that one easy word that eluded him. "Sorry," he finally said. "I thought you were someone else." But that was a lie. He knew who she was. He just hadn't remembered Tiffany Morgan well, from years back, and she looked so altered and grown up it'd caught him off guard.  
"Who?" Tiffany asked, just out of curiosity, but she was sure it must be Agent West she was facing. His black and white crisp suit looked enough like a government uniform. She examined the red welt that was growing on the side of the agent's face where he'd bumped into the metal door. "You've got a nasty bump on your cheek. You should put some ice on that so it won't swell."  
West set his hand over the throbbing pain on his face. It did hurt. But he'd had worse. "I'm used to stuff like this. It's nothing."  
Tiff began to tread past him, her shoulders set square and her chin risen high. It was just a test to see if he'd let her slip through his fingers without knowing who she was. A half-step later, Agent West tugged at her arm commandingly, and she knew that he knew who she was. She flipped around and stared at him, sharp steel in her eyes. West was one of those guys, Tiffany thought, who threw around his authority like confetti. Her father, a sheriff, did the same thing occasionally. The virility of it disgusted her. At times she loathed testosterone.  
"You're Tiff Morgan, aren't you?"  
"No," Tiffany said, "I'm Aphrodite, and I'm very late for my appointment with Adonis." She tried to wrench free of the hold he had on her arm, but he just tightened his grip, and, what's worse, she had amused him. Very little amused Orrin West.  
"I saw you earlier, walking out alone. I've been looking for you."  
"Congratulations, you've found me. Do you want a sticker for your accomplishment? Now I've got to go." Tiff knew that if she tried again to leave, he'd only grab her wrist in his hold so strongly that there'd be a bruise tomorrow where his hand was then. "Do you care that you're hurting me? You're not much of a gentleman, whoever you are."  
West let lax his fingers over the girl's arm, and he watched as the skin left his touch. And, sure enough, there were red marks of rushing blood where his hold had been. He looked at her, and he knew he was being analyzed. "I'm Orrin West, with the NSA."  
"Oh, yes," Tiffany said, giving him a speculative wince, "I think you had the pleasure of taking a vacation in one of our trees."  
West recalled the incident with the tree in mortification. "Uh, yes. That would be true."  
"I hope you at least called her up afterward."  
Despite the fact that he was supposed to be interrogating Tiffany Morgan, he smiled at the joke she'd made. Or, at least, he gave what might be construed as a smile. "We've never actually met, have we?"  
Tiffany replied to him with an eyebrow cocked, cold and expressionless. "No. I'd really rather keep it that way. I've had my fair share of your haughty government business to last me awhile."  
"But you don't understand, this is important business. It's about Ro Rowen and her---"  
"I don't think I care to hear about it, if you don't mind. What is it you came here for--Mister? I've forgotten your name already." She hadn't, but he didn't know that, did he? She loved being the ingénue who verbally tortures young men in possession of egos that would fill a universe.  
"West," he repeated, his tone now verging on impatience. "Agent Orrin West. I'm with the NSA. I'm investigating the disappearance of Ro Rowen, your foster sister. Have you seen or heard from her lately?"  
Tiff leaned to the agent a little, and she genuinely enjoyed the role she was playing. Zeta was right: Orrin West wouldn't hurt her. He just wanted to talk. She was sick of talking to the intrusive NSA. "No," she told him bitterly, "I haven't. And what makes you think I'd tell you, anyway? You're nothing but a government puppet."  
If anything in the world could've insulted Orrin West more than what Tiff Morgan just said, he couldn't think of it. "Look here, Missy!" He took hold of her arm again, this time without any gentleness.  
"The name is Tiff!"  
"And I'm Orrin West!" he shouted back. "And if you don't tell me the truth about your sister I'm going to--to---Gah!" In endless hopelessness, West tossed Tiff's appendage back at her, disgusted with himself. He'd never been good at threatening innocent women. "Look," he began, trying to find the elusive calm within, "Miss Morgan, it's against the law to withhold information about whether or not you've communicated closely with a fugitive. You have to tell us if she's contacted you. We have reason to believe she's come back here. Why? I don't know. I want to know. Maybe you know. Care to expound on any of this, Miss Morgan?"  
Tiff listened to his maunder in stillness, her mind at the edge of something unfamiliar, a kind of horror, a sort of moment of feeling all eternity. Her heart ached for Ro, and, although she didn't mean to, she glanced at the boutique window, as if expecting to see Zeta's face still there.  
Orrin casted a glance over his shoulder, just slightly, to see what the girl was regarding. If anything was there he wasn't seeing it. Yet, he felt there had been a purpose in her look. He titled his gaze back to Miss Morgan, and it took all the strength he had to ignore the tears he saw pooling her big brown eyes, dampening the thick lashes like rain. Instead, he turned and opened the door to the shop, cursing under his breath at the thing that had so accurately hit him on the right cheekbone. He peered stalwartly into the store.  
Tiff waited on the sidewalk, watching Orrin West in revulsion, even wonderment, and did not bother to wipe the tears out of her eyes. She held her breath while the agent finished his examination. She worried for Ro and Zeta, and hoped upon hope they were able to get away. But there was a whole other reason, in addition to the anxiety she felt for her sister, which brought forth a flood of tears. Something had happened to her. What was it? It'd been so long since anyone had offended her that Tiff supposed that was it. She had been offended by Agent West.  
West's appraisal of the shop yielded him no fugitives, just a curious employee behind the counter. He was unequipped for the search of Zeta and Ro Rowen, as his only purpose in Hillsburg had been to locate Tiffany Morgan. There was nothing technologically useful on his person at the moment. No holographic detector, no sound locator. The only things he carried were his equipment of standard NSA issue: gun, short and long range communication units, knife, identification badge and unlimited credcard. West always included a few things he never traveled without by default: small adhesive bandages, a tube of antiseptic gel and analgesic tablets to help with all the wounds he obtained by infused clumsiness. They were not articles which would help him find a synthoid, and for that he had to rely only on the power of investigation. He doubted wholly that the synthoid and Ro Rowen were in Maryland, so he would not waste his breath with any interrogation. He'd gone to Hillsburg only to see Tiffany Morgan, which were his orders, and he would not veer from them.   
"Excuse me, ma'am?" he started, using his authoritative NSA timber. "Have you seen a---" he stopped the words and reached out to touch the woman's skin on the back of her hand, where veins grew like sinuous mounds. He pinched it between his thumb and forefinger nails. The woman shrieked and drew back her hand. West was satisfied with the reaction. "Just checking to see--something. It's all right. I'm a government agent. Have a pleasant day." He saluted with two fingers at his crown and exited the shop.   
As soon as he'd left, and before he looked at Miss Morgan again, he realized he should've been more persistent in his questions. Did he even ask a question? Why hadn't he asked the woman if she'd seen a blonde-haired girl in her teens and an awkward-looking robot who probably didn't look like a robot? It was unimportant. No one knew where the renegades were. He massaged the back of his neck, feeling the heat of the day through him. He hated Hillsburg. He hated Maryland. "Ugh," he murmured, and rubbed his tired face, "I just want to get back to the city, where people think insane thoughts, and at least you know they're always insane. I like being where I know nothing makes sense." He looked up at Tiffany Morgan. No longer was he able to ignore the girl's tears, and certainly not the fresh ones that danced down her narrow cheeks and glistened in the clear daylight. "Listen, Miss Morgan, I---" he cut himself off and sighed in a final and ineffective attempt to suffocate that decent man that still lurked inside of him. He handed Miss Morgan a monogrammed handkerchief from his pocket. She accepted it then dabbed her eyes and nose daintily. West wondered if he'd hurt her feelings somehow. But girls drove him crazy, anyway. A guy never knew what second of the day he would find a woman a weepy mess, and a terrifying demon the next.  
"It's clear that your sister isn't in town. Why would she come back here, if she was stupid enough to do that?"  
Tiffy glanced at him, her weeping beginning to wear away. "I don't know where Ro is. I haven't seen her in years. Why'd you come all the way out here, anyway, to find her?"  
"Just as you said: to find her. Every move we make is to find her."  
Tiff inclined her head, and for the third time dabbed her nose. She was upset for Ro. She never realized how deeply she wanted Ro to have her freedom. Nor had she realized exactly how much the NSA annoyed her, with their constant searching and their refusal to leave Ro alone. "Isn't it clear to you that my sister is not a terrorist?"  
West gave a wry leer. "I have my orders, Miss Morgan."  
"Tiffany," she offered. "Miss Morgan is my spinster old aunt. I'm just Tiff."  
West would let her have it her way. "Tiffany, then. But I doubt you're 'just Tiff.'" He wondered what had made him say that. From his belt he tugged off his mobile unit, used for long-distance communication, preparing to call his team member Agent Rush, who'd been instructed to the Morgan house. He had to refrain from dialing when Tiff gave him a cool response worthy of his attention.  
"And I doubt that you're more than an NSA agent who does everything he's told."  
He wanted to be mean. He could feel that clash of anger and tyranny surge through him like a lightning bolt. He wanted to squish Tiff Morgan's perfectly beautiful red-haired head against the window of the store and threaten her within an inch of her life. Maybe with his elbow pressuring her trachea. Or maybe with the combat knife he had tucked away in the side of his boot kissing the skin of her neck, just above the blood-rich jugular. Just something to scare the girl. Sudden acts of intentional harm was not something a professional NSA agent did, however, and West had already been inches within getting fired. His job had already been on eggshells as it was. It left little room to threaten an innocent girl. He wasn't good at that, anyway: ingénues weren't his specialty. There was a lot of thought of action in West, but very little action.  
West slapped the unit under the hem of his black woolen NSA blazer, where it was tucked out of the way. He'd have to call Rush later and explain the situation. He'd found nothing, anyway. Nothing hopeful except a tearful Tiffany Morgan. "I don't like you," he said bluntly. As soon as he'd said it, he was afraid it would send her into tears again. But it didn't. Instead, he got fire shot back at him. Tiff never cried when provoked; the provocation only made her stronger.  
"It's mutual."  
"I'm glad we understand each other, then."  
"I think we do."  
"So why are you crying?"  
"Because you're a pain. Don't take it personally."  
"I wouldn't dream of it," West spoke between his clenched teeth. "I suppose it's just because of the badge and the uniform and the job, and not my wonderful, charming personality."  
"I hate everything the NSA stands for." Tiff felt a little bold stating that so clearly and articulately, right in front of an NSA agent. "You represent everything that's wrong in my life, and Ro's life. You've come into our lives like terrorists yourselves, and you've created a fissure of havoc wherever you go. And I know that every move you make going after them is the wrong one. West, you know that I know."  
Silence fell. Distantly there was the rhythmic pattern of a police siren, until it, too, faded away and died. Silence again. Tiff and West stared at each other. West ran a hand through his hair and reached again for his phone. He allowed everything Tiffany said to slide right off his back. She was, after all, an American citizen entitled to her opinion. It was not treason to think ill of the NSA. It was just foolish.  
But it was nearly the death of him when, while he dialed, he put himself in Tiffany Morgan's shoes, to see what it would be like if NSA agents sniffed around like hounds, unwanted beasts, tearing a life to shreds. Before connection to Rush's line, West disabled the vidphone and would only use voice for the call to his partner Rush. He didn't know what odd expression would be on his face, but he was pretty sure it wasn't his typical look. The less Rush knew, the better West felt. Rush answered and said she was just pulling up to the Morgan's house. West explained that he'd found Tiffany Morgan exactly where she'd been located earlier.  
"Do you think I should stay out here?" Rush asked, though she would hardly take his advice.  
"Do what you like, Rush. Take in a movie, if you want. Find a date."  
Rush chortled dryly on the end of the line. "I think I'd better meet you out here. And West?"  
"What?"  
"Don't let that Morgan girl out of your sight."  
West casted a glance behind him. Tiffany was still there, like an animal trained obediently. "I don't foresee that as a problem." He clicked off the line and returned the mobile. "Well," he said to Tiffany, "it looks like our tea party's come to an end."  
Tiffany kept her feet close together, heels touching, an equal balance throughout, and pulled back her shoulders. There was a moment of bewilderment when both expected the other to leave but neither moved. West furrowed his brow, and commanded his feet take him in whatever direction they chose. It was away from Tiffany Morgan. If he lost sight of her for several minutes together, he'd only find her again. With her luminous auburn hair and feminine sashay, she was easy to spot, especially now that he knew who he was looking for. But he'd leave her alone for a while, and he needed to be alone himself, maybe put a little something on his stinging fresh facial injury. The interrogation of Miss Tiffany Morgan had whisked his calm inner waters, a sea that ran deeper than first perceived. Orrin West did not appreciate being troubled.  
"Agent West!" Tiffany called out to him.  
With a tinge of trepidation, West faced her. She traced the steps that parted them, and allowed fifteen inches of personal space between she and he, as a protective personal bubble. West's narrow hazel eyes flashed in annoyance, but it was quickly replaced by uncanny patience. Tiff gulped to maintain his penetrating gaze.  
"I don't have my car," Tiff murmured in miserable slowness. "Would you mind at all taking me home?" 


	19. Nineteen

19) 

Ro waited anxiously in Tiff's old and wounded vehicle. Shifting her eyes all over the place nervously, she checked again to make sure the key was stuck in the ignition and the car was ready to go. All she needed was Zee. It was torture waiting for him. She kept looking behind her, through the narrow rectangular window in the back of the vehicle, smudged with insect guts and the corners dotted with cutesy decals. If she expected to see Zeta appear from that direction, she was disappointed. And even in her mind were images that West would turn the corner instead.  
There was always that split second of complete and utter human fear whenever she knew the agents were hot on the scent. A split second of terror so profound that Ro swore she was no longer human when it happened. She couldn't be, not with such a feeling. The terror itself told her that it was all over, everything was over, and the running would stop.  
Ro would rather the world ended first.  
How had the agents known they were in Hillsburg?  
The answer was obvious once Ro allowed her mind to relax. Perhaps the same person who had set their EHT cabin on fire had been the same person who'd told the NSA to check out Hillsburg, Maryland, for the two fugitives, one a robot and the other a girl.  
But the incident on the EHT was just a theory. "A speculation," as Zeta had said. It was not fact that some unknown person out there wanted Zeta and Ro scratched off for good. Even the NSA wanted Zeta in one piece. He'd cost the government a huge fortune to build, and Ro only had guesses as to how much, but upwards of fifty-billion perhaps, which included prototype materials and research. And the government was reluctant to watch their expensive investment destroyed. It was best, then, if the escaped infiltration unit with a conscience was returned in one giant three-hundred pound piece of adamantium. The idea that it was the NSA who'd set fire to the train was completely disregarded. Ro found no way to make it work, not in her mind. She knew it was someone different, someone from outside the NSA hunting them down.   
She was sick of being hunted. She felt like one of the Pleiades, who'd been hunted by Orion.   
It was funny how she didn't mind the running, the being mostly homeless, the serendipitous movements that took her from one place to the next. All of the instability she didn't mind. Yet she hated to be hunted. It was only because she was being hunted for the wrong reasons. She wasn't a terrorist. She wasn't a criminal. And neither was Zee.  
Ro grunted as she thought about the hypocrisy of the charming American government. They'd built Infiltration Unit Zeta to do just that: infiltrate. Sophisticated holographic techniques, voice alteration, unbreakable frame, high computer intelligence and learning capability, all compounded into one machine that would get behind enemy lines, steal their secrets, start wars and, more doubtfully, prevent wars. The infiltration units were engaged in their own form of private terrorism. But when it's your country that does the terror, it's okay. It was ironic, then, that the NSA believed Zeta had been programmed by some other terrorist group and were using him against America. It was still more ironic that none of that was true. Zeta was working for neither the government nor a secondary terrorist organization. Zeta worked for no one. He merely ran from those who pursued him under false pretenses.  
The rest of the world still believed in happy ignorance that infiltration units as highly advanced as Zeta did not exist. They were, of course, myths. Like alien landings and ghost sightings. Zeta was nothing more than a big metal leprechaun in the unexpanded, rigid minds of billions. Perhaps it was better this way. The world was full of cruelty toward that which was new. The cruelty only grew when the newness faded into misunderstanding. Ro had seen it happen with androids. Infiltration units like Zeta would be faced with the same difficulty, should the public ever come to learn about them, and stop hovering in their dark little dream world which kept out the light of knowledge.   
Ro awoke from the trance of profound thought, and flatly laid her hand on the horn at the wheel. It sounded through the city in a deep echo. Perhaps Zeta was lost, which Ro thought was impossible. He had a built-in sense of direction. She thought he'd at least be able to find the gift shop on Sixth Street.  
"You'd think!" Ro said aloud to the empty car.  
Then she caught sight of Zee Smith in the mirror on the driver's side. She let the horn have it again. This time Zeta did not waste time, but jogged to the door of the car. He flew in, his dark blue jacket falling about him as he sat down behind the wheel.  
"What took you so long?" Ro asked, folding her arms crossly. "Did you stop and save someone from a burning building?"  
Zeta ignored Ro's derogatory remark. "I wanted to listen to Tiffany and Agent West's conversation."  
"Oh, I bet that was fascinating."  
"I wanted to find out if they knew we were in town."  
"Did they?"  
Zeta looked at her sharply as he steered the car from the curb. "No. They don't know. I'm sure West suspects, but Tiff wouldn't tell him the truth."  
"I'm going to send that girl a big basket of fruit when I can. She deserves it. Did they say anything else?"  
"Lots of things. But, yet, nothing. It was a very unusual conversation."  
This idea roused Ro unfavorably. "Unusual how?"  
"Tiffany was not like herself. And West was different, too."  
"Maybe there's a poisonous gas floating through the air downtown," Ro said. "Maybe she was just uncomfortable. West could make anyone's skin crawl."  
"Uncomfortable isn't the word I would use."  
Ro lifted her elbow to rest on the back of the seat, and she set her head into the palm as she looked at Zee. He glanced at her blankly, all innocent and arcane. When he again paid attention to the traffic in front of him, Ro began to gather together the holes in Zeta's story.   
"You mean, he was, like, hitting on her or something?"  
Zeta didn't understand the question. His quizzical look told her so. She tried to rephrase it using real English words instead.  
"I mean, they were flirting with each other?"  
"Flirting?" he repeated, and Ro tightened her lips to keep from smiling. It was one of those words she'd never thought Zee would say, and she wasn't sure it suited him. "I am familiar with the custom of flirtatious behavior among adults. But that is not what I would imagine flirting to be like."  
"Wonderful," Ro growled. "I hope she hasn't lost all sense, and I hope you've misunderstood. I'm definitely calling her whenever we get to where we're going. And where might that be?"  
"Back to Spring City, at least for the night. They won't think to find us there."  
Ro pulled her legs up underneath her and yawned. Another moving vehicle, another nap. She titled her head into the seat, still facing Zeta. She watched his hands on the wheel and his foot against the pedal. "Why do you always have to drive? Everywhere we go you drive. Why don't I ever get to drive?"  
"You don't have a license," he replied.  
"Neither do you, hologram man."  
"But I look old enough to drive."   
That was true, he did look older, and his inhuman reflexes made him a more capable driver, especially if they ran into NSA trouble on some desert road, some city by-pass, some residential street.  
Ro thought of something she'd told Tiffany earlier, about how she had no birth certificate, no papers, no nothing to show she was Ro Rowen. "I don't exist, you know."  
Zeta pretended not to hear her. He'd thought often enough that he didn't exist. Every time he said the thought aloud, there was Ro to contradict him. He could think of no contradiction. He lacked Ro's stylish wit.  
"So tell me, Zee. Do you have any more theories about our new enemy? Or, better yet, our new superhero?"  
"No," he replied. "I haven't had time to think of it. Would you like to think about it now?"  
"I'd like to sleep now and think about it later." Ro snuggled into the seat, finding that it smelled distantly of the Morgan house, and faintly of Tiff's perfume, a kind of flowery, gardenia and orange scent. "You can think about it all you want, Zee, while I sleep."  
It wasn't a terribly tedious drive to Spring City, just over an hour by freeway. Zeta stuck to the easy freeways. They were safer, out in the open, built amongst corn fields and Maryland's fruit orchards. The picturesque country faded away to suburbia, until the urban buildings took over the landscape, like encroaching metal insects. Just as he reached a familiar portion of Spring City, he shook Ro on her shoulder to awaken her. Zeta had stopped the car in a parking garage and Ro observed the dim surroundings, looked to see how late it'd gotten, and how the sun would set soon. She rubbed her face and swept back her hair. The day had been a long and interesting one. Suddenly she wished she hadn't thought that. Every time she thought a day was over, inevitably something else happened. As she lifted herself out of the car she stretched, her hands lifting high above her head, and Zeta joined her. He poked her in the side while her arms were not there to protect, and she jumped away. She hated to be tickled, but knew how much tickling was a curiosity to the synthoid, who would never understand the purely human torture but wished he could. He asked the question he often did wherever they stopped. "Eat now or hotel first?" And Ro never wavered in her reply; it was always the same: eat first, hotel later.   
Spring City was a dangerous town. A person had a one out of one-hundred chance of being murdered in a given week. Run mostly by mobs and gang members, the urban portion of the city grew deadly once the sun touched the horizon. Aware that Zeta knew this, Ro wondered why he'd chosen to stop there. It would've been nothing for him to drive all night. He had some kind of plan, and she was afraid to ask what it was. Zeta always seemed to have some plan.  
"You don't like it here, do you?" Zee asked. They walked coolly along the sidewalk in the business portion of town, lined with entrances to offices and the occasional shop.  
"No," Ro answered curtly. "And you know why."  
"Your dislike is apparent, like hostility."  
"Why'd we stop here?"  
"To tell you the truth," Zeta started and he slowed his steps for a moment, "I thought it would be--funny."  
"I assume you mean weird funny and not comical funny."  
"Yes. Where do you want to eat?"  
Ro had to think about it. She looked around her, the block of Spring City they were on was too familiar to her, and she resented the lifting of regret inside. "Greek, maybe." Two years ago there had been a decent Greek restaurant only a block from where they stood, just up the street. It was odd the things she could remember when she was faced with them again and they stared back at her. It was like looking into a mirror, one with hazy edges to distort the past so it would become what one wanted to believe it was and not what it really had been.   
The restaurant was still there, owned by the same Greek family, and Ro even recalled the looks of many employees. They were shown a table, nearly having their rule of the place, as it was not yet a busy meal time. It was just barely five-thirty, on a Tuesday, and it was unlikely the restaurant would gain more customers than the few already there, even through the more popular late dinner hours. Ro had to look at the menu to remember what Greek food was like and decide what tantalized her. She placed her order, their server giving an obligatory leer at Zee, who never ordered.   
Zee was so far away that Ro could hardly get him engaged in any conversation, until she asked him one thing which caught his attention readily.  
"Tell me about--nebulae."  
"Nebulae?" he repeated, startled. "Why nebulae?"  
"They interest me."  
He asked a question using information she didn't know he had, in reference to her meeting with Tiff earlier. "So you really are interested in astrophysics?"  
She wasn't surprised. He heard all. He saw all. Omnipresent synthoid. "A little. Never mind." Ro waved a hand. A part of her wished he hadn't heard that conversation with Tiff. It wasn't anything she'd said, she didn't care about that. But the idea of it somehow bothered her. "How much of our talk did you listen to? Where were you?"  
"I didn't pry," he said. "Only I caught a few words here and there. I was on the other side of the park. A hundred and three feet from the bench where you and Tiff rested. Your conversation was private. It's between you and Tiff. I can erase the memory if you would feel better about it."  
She lifted a thin eyebrow, eyelids tightened to scrutiny. "Don't bother. I'm not ashamed of anything I said. Well, it's just that I have so few moments alone."  
"Would you rather be alone?"  
Ro glowered at him while mourning the possibility. "No."  
Zeta knew she was greatly on edge. He'd never seen her so tense. It was the atmosphere of the town she loathed that did it, and it was not his presence. He studied her keenly while she accepted timidly her ordered beverage from the waiter. Even after all the days that had passed since she'd told him her troubles, Zeta was unable to come up with an explanation about Ro's visual manifestations of her parents, and all the things that lately seemed to haunt her. He knew she was unwell, somehow, and that concerned him intensely.  
"Being alone is unnatural," Ro said, and chewed on her straw. "I don't think people are meant to be alone."  
"That is a theory supported by evolution. Primates, for example, live in---"  
Ro lifted her hand to dismiss his topic. He altered the subject, drawing in a perfectly human breath.  
"It's time for you to take a break."  
"You mean that rest thing you keep mentioning? That would be nice. Now that I've seen Tiff, I've done all that I need to do, all that I can do. Except I wonder about Batty Gwennie." Ro shook her head as she stared into the table top, recalling pictures of Gwennie, and still in shock the old woman was dead so suddenly. "She might've been able to help me. I think that woman had some kind of power. I don't mean, like, mutant power. I mean she knew the right kind of people. That's a great power, when it's not abused. I think she really wanted to help me."  
"Yes, she knew you were a Rowen. She said you look like a Rowen. Her death was a loss to us both, then. You for a lead to your family, and me---"  
"For a lead to your family."  
Any of his missing creators might be considered Zeta's 'family', but that wasn't what he was going to say, though it was near enough to allow it to remain unaltered. Ro had chosen the words wisely.  
Ro leaned back into her chair, a profound thoughtfulness upon her face. "Say, Zee," she started and he looked her in the eye casually, "I have an idea. Tell me, you do remember everything, don't you?"  
"Whatever I want to, yes."  
"And you store it away somewhere, right? Like, in a database?"  
"Yes."  
"Is there a way to access that database?"  
"Yes."  
"And a person can download your memories to another computer, and display what you see?"  
"Yes," he said, thinking what she was thinking. "That is how I intend to prove my innocence. The only devices available to synchronize my thoughts with a computer's hard drive are located in government buildings. I don't know what buildings or who is in possession of such a tool. There may be only one. But one is all that it would take, if I could get to it. That seems impossible."  
"Of course. I hadn't thought of that." Ro had forgotten he was a high-tech secret weapon. Therefore no one but the government would have the ability to access the information a synthoid obtained. "There's got to be another way. Maybe you don't need the doc."  
"He's the only one I would trust," Zeta said, almost in tenderness. Ro fancied that, in his own robotic way, Zeta looked upon Dr. Selig as a father figure. If a synthoid, created from the minds of humans, could have a father, Zeta's was master scientist Eli Selig. Zeta set his forehead in his upturned palm, and looked about him in the restaurant mournfully. He said his favorite word that meant much but with great imprecision. "Someday, Ro." 


	20. Twenty

20) 

Agent James Bennett, donned in street clothes but surreptitiously carrying his sidearm underneath a leather jacket, lingered in the doorway of the dimly lit Ground Wire in the south side of Spring City. He hated Ground Wires. They were too corporate and nearly everywhere; a person couldn't get away from them, like advertising and taxes. Still, they were as open, welcoming and downright innocent as the world could get as far as international franchises went. No one suspected any peculiar meeting to happen in a Ground Wire. He scanned his eyes over the scattering of yuppie urban patrons as he tromped through slowly to an empty stool in the middle of the café's bar. The robot waiter took his order for a French roast espresso then promptly disappeared. Bennett was left alone to his thoughts. There weren't many.  
He wanted the synthoid.  
He wanted the girl.  
He wanted to get home.  
The cafe wasn't a recluse for him during any trip he made to Maryland, which was, luckily, only a few times a year. The cafe served another purpose. A Spring City NSA floater was to meet him there to pass along some needed info. The same information, he hoped, that was from the anonymous source that had brought him to Spring City in the first place. If it hadn't been for the tip that the girl, Rosalie Rowen, and the synthoid were seen in town, he never would've gone back there. Like Agent West, Bennett shared a discreet disgust for the town. Hillsburg he hated even more, for all its perfection; it was a town that was sticky like honey. He'd done the wise thing by sending his field agents to search Hillsburg while he stuck around Spring City. He enjoyed riling up Orrin West by making the wayward kid do things he didn't want to do, and what he didn't want to do was go to Hillsburg. There was no point in being boss if you could not occasionally patronize agents who were infinite steps lower on the NSA food chain. And West was low, getting lower, as far as Bennett was concerned. At least Karen Rush, West's partner, seemed to have good sense. She was a real agent. The woman had intellect, guts, a heart of steel and a deadly aim. Previous NSA agent Marcia Lee also possessed a marksman's keen eye. Bennett recalled it with regret. Agent Lee had been one of the best he'd known until she grew soft. He had no patience for people who grew soft. Toughness was one of the things that made a mediocre person a really great agent in his book. Occasionally he lost patience with Rush, despite his respect for her, but his patience was short with everyone. Bennett didn't know if West would ever be an outstanding agent, and he doubted West had his soul lodged firmly in everything the NSA could do to a man.  
Bennett sipped the tart espresso, then felt the corner of his lip lift in a snide, arrogant smile. He did love to torture that kid. Right now, West was probably looking for Tiffany Morgan, who'd been spotted on her way to downtown Hillsburg. Agent Bennett would be surprised if West was capable of finding the elusive red-head. He'd sent Rush along to Hillsburg with West, giving strict orders that she was to go straight to the Morgan's, and told West he'd have to hunt for the Morgan girl downtown on his own. To Bennett's surprise, West accepted the orders using none of his usual expletive grumbles. Perhaps there was hope that West would turn out to be a good agent, after all. But Bennett wouldn't count on it.   
Partially through the drink, Bennett looked over when a man sat beside him. It was his contact. They gave away nothing that declared they new each other. They had a code, like all coverts do.  
James sipped his coffee again, and set it roughly on the accompanying ceramic plate. "Spring City is nice this time of year."  
"Yes, and it's too bad that in a week I'm westbound," the nameless floater replied.  
It was the right statement. In a stealthy movement, pretending he was reaching across Bennett for a couple of napkins, the covert dropped a small and rolled-up piece of paper in front of James. Having already paid the small tab in an automatic credcard machine, Bennett palmed the nearly invisible wad of paper and left. He thought of how nice it was to be out of the classy joint, where the air inside was so rich with materialism and caffeine that it stung his eyes and torched his skin like acid. The air of Spring City wasn't much cleaner. Better than it used to be, but not great.  
He went around the block to his government vehicle, a black non-descript car with a fake license and more hidden weaponry than a fighter jet. Well, practically. Once inside, he sat behind the wheel and examined the piece of paper. It took him at least a minute to unroll the thing. Another ten seconds to turn on the overhead light so he could read what was written in pale graphite.  
Bennett gave a pleased smile.   
It was the information he'd been waiting for.

Meanwhile, Orrin West was sitting tensely in the comfortable suburban home of the Morgans. Agent Rush was with him, and she was placed coolly and unemotionally in the chair beside his. While the Sheriff was ranting on about the sour political state of Hillsburg, and how he ought to run for mayor, West was frowning visibly. How had the managed to stay so long in one place? Where was the overdue call from Bennett with some new lead on Ro Rowen and Zeta? Or, at the very least, Bennett could tell them the operation was nixed entirely, and would grudgingly send his agents home. West lounged back in the chair. He wanted to go home, back to West Country. Maryland was not his favorite place to be.   
Tiff tried her best to dissuade her father's meaningless topic of conversation. She could tell the agents were weary and ready to be on their way. And she was ready to let them go. The only reason she'd kept them there was to hope that Ro would get a head start out of town. Ro and Zeta obviously hadn't been spotted, or the agents would've left in a kafuffle. For the first thirty minutes of their visit, Tiff had kept them moderately occupied by answering their questions, the same old dreary questions. Her father had joined them in the formal living room only ten minutes before, yet in those ten minutes he'd managed to talk up a storm.   
"Dad," Tiff said while he paused for a breath, "I think it's time that our company left, don't you?"  
"Oh," the sheriff murmured, as though waking from a distant dream, "sure, sure. Of course. You must be tired and have things to do. Let's not keep you any longer." The sheriff might have gotten rid of them sooner, if he'd remembered they were even there. In the throes of his random political rhetoric, the company of two NSA agents had been forgotten.  
Rush and West were shown to the door by Tiff, while her father, after a brief and informal farewell, returned to his office in the back of the house. He spent a good deal of time there, working on projects, reading, and writing the occasional essay during the times he tried to be scholarly. His seclusion allowed Tiff virtual free-reign of the house.  
Karen Rush shook Miss Morgan's hand in courtesy, and it was even courtesy that she felt. "Thanks for the visit. I'm sorry if we spoiled your evening plans."  
"You didn't. I had no plans. Every three months or so I expect some NSA someone or another to stop by. You never disappoint. You're always on time. I suppose you'll be tracking my next moves, won't you?"  
Rush didn't know what to say, but West did.   
"Are you going somewhere, Miss Morgan?"  
Tiff lifted her chin in a moment of arrogance and pride. "College."  
"Where?" he inquired further. And he was ready to laugh aloud if she said she was staying in Maryland. He'd be surprised if Tiffany Morgan dared to wander beyond the state's small borders.  
"Bayville, New York. I won a scholarship."  
West was mildly stunned. He opened his mouth for a smart retort, but when he found he had no words, he locked his jaw closed. Rush tapped him on he arm, saying it was time that they left.  
"I need a minute, Rush," West said. "You can head back. I'll be right behind you."  
Rush winced at him to speculate why he was being dismissive. She shrugged. Let him dig his own grave, she thought. Bennett would have his hide, and it wouldn't be the first time. West was running out of skin to donate. They had brought two cars, and she would take hers back to Spring City. West would drive back alone. He was prepared for that.  
Tiff watched Agent Rush leave in a quiver of disorientation and fear. Her first encounter with West hadn't been emotionally pleasant, and she didn't want them to spend time alone again. Tiff leaned heavily into the door's wide frame, her back rigid, her face fierce and her arms severely crossed. She was letting her annoyance show, and it was caught by West's vigilance.  
"It'll only take a minute," he said to her. "I want to ask you something."  
Tiff reached for the ajar front door behind her. She pulled it shut and stood on the front porch, under the high lamp that shined above, into the dusk and deepening shadow of the house's north side. She looked over West, and he seemed calmer, less obtrusive. He was almost tolerable. "Ask."  
"What was Ro like when she was younger? I mean, when you first knew her."  
The thoughts of a young Ro only brought sorrow to Tiffany. Her shoulders slackened and her mouth was drawn. "I don't like to think about those things," she said. Feeling suddenly lethargic, tired and old, Tiffany sat down on a wicker rocker, thinking about young Ro only by West's instigation. "It's hard. Really hard. You wouldn't understand."  
West leaned into the railing of the porch, three feet high, so he practically sat upon it. He'd asked because he wanted to know. Of course, he'd done research into Ro Rowen's history, and it was not a pretty one. But the files lacked a perspective on Ro's personality. There was a scientific and boring psychological profile of the girl, but based on whose knowledge? While he had a moment to spare, he wanted to ask about the illusive fugitive from someone who had actually known Ro Rowen. "I think I get what you mean," he said tellingly.   
Tiffany gave a sudden, gentle chuckle. She could remember young Ro, all right, and that remembrance was bittersweet. "She was so wild. You know? Always getting into everything without even thinking there could be dear consequences. She was brash, but always managed to get herself out of trouble if she got in it, and that wasn't often. She spied and snooped. She'd be gone for hours. Sun up to sun down. We'd have no idea where she was. Of course, they didn't really care."  
"Who didn't care?"  
"My parents. It's no secret they liked me far better than they liked her."  
Not a secret, especially not to West. Tiffany Morgan was a daddy's girl. Ro Rowen belonged to no one. "How did you feel about her?"  
"At times I hated her. At times she hated me. And most of the time we hated each other." Tiff sighed and observed the quiet September night growing in upon the yard; the sky darkened and the houses on her street were lit in the windows. Life was calm but somehow lonely. Poor Ro, she thought. Poor Ro who'd come all the way to Hillsburg just to see her foster sister. Tiff's heart ached in her chest. "But, in the end, there is no one else in the world I would rather have as my sister." The statement's power ignited a rueful smile, and she let West see it, along with the tears cresting her eyes. "We weren't a lot alike."  
"I can imagine," West said, giving her a brief grin that was, in his own way, a touch full of pity.  
Tiffany sniffled and smeared the tears dry from her face. "Why did you want to know?"  
West stared off into the painted wooden planks of the porch for a long minute, his fingers tapping his chin while he contemplated an answer. "I suppose that it's a good thing for any agent to know who they're after. Get inside of their mind. Think how they think. It makes the chase easier if you can predict what they're going to do. The only way you can do that is if you know the mannerisms of who you're after." West shrugged one shoulder, snickering at his terrible NSA qualities. He was good at the mentality; he had a soldier's brain and an honor to his country's security. But he lacked a quality that was nameless to him; he didn't know what it was he didn't have but other agents did. Perhaps fortitude. "And for two years this girl has managed to elude us. Oh, sure, we catch her often, see her sometimes, yet she always gets away. I thought it was time that I stopped relying so much on technology and started getting old school. What did really good agents do back in the day? They did research. They found out who their criminals were. They got to know them like a good friend. Maybe that's what needs to be done.  
"I'm not a very good agent," he said while staring directly at Tiff, and he thought he detected a hint of surprise. "I'm not even a good agent when I follow all the rules strictly and adhere to every command my boss throws at me. But maybe it's time for the rules to be widened a little bit, harmlessly. For two years I've been tracking your sister. I don't want it to take another two years to catch her."   
Tiff lowered her gaze and said nothing. During parts of his speech, she'd momentarily forgotten who he was and what he represented; she forgot they were on opposite quests. He wanted to hunt Ro down like some crazed psychopathic animal that was a threat to the universe. Tiff wanted to incubate Ro forever, and spin for her a safety cocoon, somewhere the NSA would not find her. "West," she started, then stopped.  
"What?"  
"I knew Ro for years, and you must believe me when I tell you that she's no criminal. She's not a---"  
"A terrorist?"  
Tiffany nodded emphatically. "She was just . . . so wild! Vulgar, clever, witty, resourceful. Independent as hell. She took care of herself, probably because no one else would. That's how she got so wild. And it's different kind of wild than what you might think. Not a criminal wild. She wasn't ever hostile. Her wildness was more like that of an untamed horse, something brutal and beautiful at the same time."  
"I hear what you're saying, Tiffany, and I know you are entitled to believe what you want to believe. Unfortunately, it doesn't do the NSA any good. She has attached herself to a dangerous synthoid. She is his accomplice."  
"He's no more a danger to you than I am!" Tiff retaliated.  
Orrin West couldn't help but let out a question. It was both playful and serious, if the two could be mixed. "How do I know that you're not dangerous to me?"  
"Because, I---" Tiff's excuse faltered and broke away.  
West waited smugly for an answer, any answer. He waited a solid thirty seconds for her to come up with a reason, yet she never did. "I think I've proved my point, even on a much larger scale than I intended."  
"Someday, Orrin," she said to him, her eyes heavily on his, in a way that made his blood run cold, "you're going to find out that everything you're doing is wrong, when you find out how innocent she is. And then you'll be sorry you've wasted so many years of your life."  
Before he could answer, West's communications unit began to ring from the satchel on his belt. As he lifted it from its spot, he answered Tiff in a serious tone that reflected her mood. "I hope you're right, Tiff. I always like to find out that someone is innocent. Excuse me." West stepped away, off the porch and out of the yellow light into the pale darkness of the newborn eve. It was Karen Rush.  
"Haven't you left yet?"  
"No, we're playing poker and I've got a winning hand." He wondered if Karen would know he was kidding. Her sense of humor often clashed with his, whenever either of them would show they had one.  
"You'd better get moving, West. Bennett just got in touch with me. He knows where they are. A Greek restaurant in north Spring City, on Hyde Street, the seven-hundred block. I'm telling you that so you can get there in a hurry. Bennett's on his way there now to confront them."  
"Alone?" West inquired.  
"Apparently. Are you coming, or do I have to drive back there and pry you away from Tiff Morgan?"  
West accepted the tactless scorn, as he thought he deserved it. "I'm on my way." He hung up and replaced the phone and retraced his steps to the porch. He set a rounded shoulder into the column by the stairs. Regarding saddened Tiff again, West gave a light sigh. "Miss Morgan, I've got to go."  
"Fine, Mr. NSA Agent," she delivered in cruelness. Tiff read his harsh, aloof manner, and knew what had been the topic of his call. "You're going after her, aren't you? You know where she is."  
"I am going after her, yes. That's my job."  
Tiff remained tensely seated, though West had begun to step from the house, into the dark sidewalk that led to his vehicle. "Hey, if you see her," she waited for him to leer her again, "will you tell her something for me?"  
Already knowing he was in over his head, West found no harm in taking the message. "What's that?"  
"Tell her I love her, and that I'll never stop believing in her." Tiffany twiddled her fingers as a farewell and headed into the house. She slammed shut the door and bolted the lock loudly. In a rare moment of demonstrative agitation, Tiff kicked the door with the side of her foot.  
West turned his back to the Morgan house as the front light was switched off by a disgruntled and hurt Tiffany. He regrouped himself, though it was not easy to shake off his ill feeling.   
He sat in his car for a minute, in the dark, the card key in the ignition slot, but without the engine yet running. With his hands fixed on the wheel, his knuckles starch white in the shadowy light, West thought through what he'd learned about Ro from one of the people who knew her best: her sister. The grip on the wheel tightened the more he wondered if Tiff Morgan was right. West tilted his head into his chest, his eyes moving rapidly through the dark, and he suddenly swore aloud.   
"This is America, after all," he told the air. He sighed and pressed the ignition button; the car purred to life. "People are innocent until proven guilty."  
But it left West in an interesting mental state. If that was true, and every philosophy told him it was, it meant Ro Rowen was innocent. West grunted in dismay and shoved his foot over the accelerator; the car roved on ahead down the straight residential street.   
"Innocent my eye," West muttered. He needed to let Tiffany Morgan have far less influence over his thoughts. He needed to do his job. He had two renegades to catch. Unfortunately, he left Hillsburg forty minutes too late.

Agent Bennett examined the lighted windows of the restaurant through binoculars. He stood a half-block away, cater-corner to the place of Greek cuisine, and he was able to see the synthoid and the girl in an askew perspective. He set the binoculars down and sneered. If he had to go in there and get them alone, he would. It was unlikely they would show resistance in a public place. Too many witnesses. Too many people to kill in order to get away. It'd be too messy, even for a destructively programmed synthoid like Zeta. The idea of capturing the outlaw infiltration unit single-handedly rather excited Bennett.  
"Maybe without West around," Bennett said quietly to himself and the empty street corner, "I can actually get my hands on the betraying ton of metal."  
He lifted the binoculars again and saw that the synthoid and Ro Rowen were about to exit the restaurant. James hurried across the street and ducked behind the corner, so he could view their presence closely.   
Ro wandered out of the restaurant first, as Zeta held the door open for her as he did occasionally, when he remembered to play the role of gentleman. Ro waited for him to be at her side before they continued down the dark street, now lit by halogen bulbs in the tall solar-powered city lamps against the steady growth of a long September sunset.  
"Where to now, tin man?" she asked. Now that she was full, her stomach happily satiated, she wondered if he had any other plans besides finding somewhere to rest for the night.  
"We'll leave that up to fate," was Zeta's reply.  
"You're really getting into all this fate stuff, aren't you?"  
"I find it interesting." Zee took her hand in his, comforted slightly that fate, or whatever it had been, had allowed he and Ro to meet.  
"I don't like it. Any of it." Even if Ro couldn't appreciate the idea of fate, she was pleased that Zeta would not give up his interest in human life, and he was even pushing against immobile boundaries to grasp the knowledge, so far as to contemplate something that still beguiled humans: the subject of fate. He still studied, examined, found something new to know. It must've been nice, she thought, to know nothing about the world and start from scratch, but it must also be one of the most frustrating situations, particularly when thrown without explanation into the responsibility of keeping yourself alive.  
Zee wasn't surprised by Ro's cruel words. "I know you don't like it." He lowered his shoulder and bumped it playfully into hers. It brought a grin to her lips briefly, before the common frown appeared again. "Your dislike of it is part of the reason I like it."  
"You should really stop trying to find your sense of humor from me," Ro told him, merely as a light suggestion.   
Zeta had stopped listening, then he stopped walking. Ro took a step ahead. Her hand still in his was drawn taut and she flung back, suddenly noticing how frozen the synthoid stood. "I hear something," Zee said. He looked down at Ro only to abruptly look up again. His attention had been caught.  
Ro felt someone creep up behind her, and before she could turn around or run, she was snagged around the throat by a large brawny arm. Something was pointed into her side. A blade? She didn't know, and didn't want to take the time to glance down and have a look. Whatever it was and whoever was holding it was very prepared to slaughter her if the need arose. The thought kept her from struggling, otherwise she would've thrashed about madly.  
Zeta took a step backward, just a half-step, more out of surprise than out of fright. He glanced between Ro's exasperated eyes full of fear and the cool and rather trenchant expression of James Bennett.  
Bennett tightened his grip around Ro's shoulders, squeezing her windpipe in the crook of his elbow and decreasing the flow of blood to her brain. He twisted the tip of the knife into the girl's side. She felt the blade's touch and whimpered.  
"Something happened at Nosis, Zeta, to make me want to get tougher on you. I'm not above ending the world or killing someone in order to reach you. Turn yourself in, Zeta, and I'll let her go." Bennett thought a smart robot like Zeta would listen to a bargain.   
Zeta calculated his options. There weren't many, and few of them were good.  
"Zee!" Ro shrieked, her voice strained from the crushing of her trachea.  
Zeta sincerely doubted Bennett would kill Ro, no matter what he claimed. The agent wanted both of the fugitives alive. It'd be worth far more to the government if Ro and Zeta were captured together, brought into NSA custody together, questioned together. Zeta imagined how it would be if it ever happened, all the synchronicity. "You won't kill her."  
Bennett was angered by Zeta's lack of emotion. Then he remembered he was talking to a robot who felt nothing. The hologram was so convincing that even Bennett could forget. He wrenched the knife dangerously close to Ro's ribs. She tried to lean in the opposite direction, further from the blade, but Bennett's weapon followed. "Won't I? Are you willing to bet her life that I'm merely bluffing?"  
Zeta was suddenly not sure. A dark fluid oozed from Ro's side, slowly, in a millimeter width. The appearance of the blood aroused no anger in Zeta. He knew nothing of resentment. What he was familiar with was hurt, emotional hurt. Ro was in danger.  
Ro felt very little pain, just a slight sting at first, then it turned into what she thought was a burn, like she'd left her side too near a flame. Bennett's knife. She grasped Bennett's forearm, still tightly over her throat, and tried to wrench free from his hold. The struggle granted no benefit, and she grew weary from trying and vertiginous from lack of oxygen. She forced her eyes to stay open, to allow herself consciousness if nothing else. She was not meant to die there, not like that, and she refused to believe reality. She called out to Zeta one final time. "Zee!"  
Zeta remained in a reflective, scanning mode. The attempts to formulate a plan were failing him. He went through strategies and possibilities. The easiest would be to attack Bennett, since Zeta knew the advantage of a quick retaliatory reflex lay in his favor. Bennett was a good agent, quiet and meticulous, but he was still human, faulty and slow. But attacking was out of the question. It would only prove to Bennett what Zeta had been trying for years to disprove: he had a moral conscience. In fact, Zeta saw the irony of the situation clearly, and wondered if Bennett noticed. Bennett had ruthlessly injured Ro Rowen while Zeta stood by and watched, causing no harm.  
"I don't care if you do have a conscience! You could be a saint and I'd still find a way to prove your guilt, Zeta!" Bennett yelled. "Turn yourself in. It's the best offer I can give you."  
As Bennett again tightened his hold against a paling Ro, a whistle wafted through the air, almost like a firecracker. The synthoid was the only one whose perception was keen enough to notice it. To human ears it was a few decibels over the hearing range. Zeta noted that Bennett had slumped, then he fell heavily, and Ro was suddenly free from his hold. Ro clutched at her throat with two hands, swallowing, gulping in air. She drooped over at the waist, pressured the spots of dark blood, and tried to get her senses in order. Zeta surveyed the area around them while he gently touched Ro on the back to let her know she was all right. He found nothing that was unusual, and broadened his search in a thermal scan to search the dark windows of the office buildings and apartments stories over the street. When he found nothing, he switched back to normal sight. He proceeded to examine Bennett. There was a tiny tranquilizer needle sticking out of his neck. A perfect shot from someone who was not a murderer, but someone who clearly wanted Bennett to leave Zeta and Ro alone. The tranquilizer had done the job. They were free and Bennett was sleeping, floating through pleasant dreams that, when he woke up, he would wish were real.  
Zeta lifted his head when he heard a shuffling of feet close by. Standing in the shadow of a broken window of a rundown building on the opposite side of the street, he saw a figure. A small figure, rather like a child, as it appeared from behind the brick casement and into view, but not enough in the light that Zeta could determine features. He saw a shoulder, thin and square, and maybe the outline of a pinna, but he wasn't sure. The figure moved from view before he conduct another type of search.  
"Don't just stand there, Zeta, take the girl and run." The voice was in a normal whisper, not shouted over the distance of the wide street. Whoever was there knew that Zeta's aural sense was acute and he was sure to hear even the most hushed of tones. It was also an androgynous voice, neither female nor male. Zeta didn't have time to investigate further. He took the voiced advice.  
"Ro, it's all right," Zeta spoke. He held her at the shoulders, suggesting both urgency and concern. "Are you able to walk?"  
Ro's vertigo was wearing off, and she finally felt like her senses were normal again, though it would take some time for the pounding of her heart to return to any semblance of normalcy. She touched her chest and she heaved a dry cough again. "I'm fine," she managed to say. Out of her eye she saw Agent Bennett sprawled over the sidewalk, a deep shadow over his face and green glasses. His back and the top of his hair, his neck and the needle were highlighted by the lamps. He looked dead and at rest, far away from holding any ability to harm her. The standard-issue NSA knife was a half-foot from his hand. Ro kicked it away, and it landed somewhere in a distant gutter, clacking and clanging as it went. Maybe when he woke, she thought, he'd spend some time looking for it. It'd serve him right if he thought he was a little crazy. Ro turned from him angrily, full of spite for the NSA. But she found a moment to be grateful he'd been the only agent around.   
They weren't far from the parking garage where they'd left Tiff's car. Ro was able to build her walk to a slight jog by the time they were at the garage. The pain in her side caused her to tumble into the vehicle, exhausted, injured, and cranky. She rummaged through the glove compartment to find some tissues to cover her scratch. The pliable paper absorbed the trickles of blood, what hadn't yet scabbed, and she applied gentle pressure to stop the bleeding. The pain would have to stop on its own.   
"What happened?" she asked quietly as Zeta drove out of the parking garage. "How'd we get away?" Ro titled her head back into the seat while waiting for an answer.  
"It was our unknown savior. He--she--it--had followed us to Spring City. I saw--it--across the street in the abandoned building, but only when it wanted me to know it was there. It was the one who shot the immobilizer at Bennett that granted us escape."  
Ro swerved her head to look at Zee. She managed a rough, shaky smile. The life and humor was back in her eyes. "It, huh?"  
"I don't know what it was. I'm sorry, but I didn't get a very good look. If I'd been quick enough to scan thermally just as it appeared . . . But it was out of my sight by then. I was only able to gather immediate information. The height of a child. The voice of a neither girl nor boy. Prepubescent, perhaps."  
"Our savior is sexless and a child? That's a little odd."  
"Not just a little odd," Zeta differentiated, "very odd."  
Zeta examined Ro thoroughly once they were far beyond the limits of Spring City and into northern Virginia. Spring City was far, far behind them, and Washington was a speckling glint at the distant horizon, and ahead of them were the beginning hills of the Appalachians. They were standing along the side of the road, a secondary road just off the main freeway and a little beyond the overpass. A stop Zeta had made a few minutes earlier procured for Ro a few medical necessities. Zeta knelt in front of her, Ro leaning against the hood of the car, while he pasted a bandage on her ribs. A little antiseptic was all she needed. It was only a superficial wound, nothing dangerous. Still, Zeta and Ro felt that it should not have happened at all. Zeta tugged the hem of Ro's shirt down to her waist, covering his speedily accomplished work. He stood and gathered the supplies he used off the car's hood.   
"You'll be fine. It'll be sore for a while."  
"I'll live."  
"You've had worse."  
"I was just going to say that," she said, a touch playful, but she became pensive again. "Hey, Zee?"  
"What?" he said, about to return to the shelter of the car, and he thought Ro ought to do the same.   
"What would you have done tonight, with Bennett, if---"  
"I would've found a way, somehow. But I knew he was bluffing. He wasn't going to hurt you. It's not really you---"  
"Liar," Ro interrupted callously. "You know they want me as much as they want you." She waited, expecting Zeta to say something inspired, but he said nothing. "But they won't take us without a fight. And we really have given them one, haven't we?"   
Zeta nodded. At least with that he agreed. They had escaped the tyranny of the NSA for two years. The long chase had forced the NSA agents to rearrange their former precepts, but to no avail.   
Ro looked away, into the dark, unlit country road. Only the lights of the freeway caused the distant shadows, like black fading into black and tree trunks and foliage crossed each other diagonally and vertically. The fresh night air was saturated with the odors of September rain as it began to trickle intermittently from the sky. Ro was relieved when she'd seen the Welcome to Virginia sign, once they crossed the river. And happier still that Spring City loomed fifty miles back, where it could be a problem to its five-million citizens and not to Ro Rowen. Not anymore. Yet, there was something that had happened she was trying to recall. Something before Agent Bennett had attacked her. Something she'd seen that hadn't anything to do with Agent Bennett, but with someone else. Ro just couldn't remember.   
They stopped at a Ground Wire in suburban Richmond. One of the few Ground Wires that was open past ten at night. People in Richmond dearly loved their caffeine, and no matter what hour they craved it, they wanted it when they needed it. They came in with shaking hands and their eyes dilated, mouths dry and hearts at a steady pace they weren't used to. A few of them were there when Ro and Zeta had entered, but, like usual, no one gave the young woman and her guardian much regard.  
Ro sat at one of the computers, in a high-legged wooden chair that fit with the Ground Wire's different country décor. Zeta was sitting at a small round table by the window, flipping through entries of a compact electronic atlas. She didn't know what he was doing, except for the logical explanation he was trying to find somewhere else for them to be. Ro looked back at the blue and white hue of the screen, her eyes transfixed on the text she read there. She was searching through the ads, to make sure nothing from her brother was lurking. But when she saw nothing written in their code, she moved on to other websites. She searched Ground Wire's news archive and found something of great interest.  
"Hey, Zee!" Ro called. "Look at this."  
Zeta leaned over Ro's shoulder to quickly read what was displayed on the screen. A news article about Gwennie Rowen's sudden death. It was only briefly written, stating nothing new. She'd died of a stroke in her home located in the historic district of Glenview, Oregon. She'd been an upstanding citizen, volunteer and historic renovation activist, political activist for the freedom of Northern Ireland, and had even once run for mayor.   
"Read that last part," Ro said with interest.  
Zeta nodded as soon when he'd gone through the last lines. "Her son has died, but her daughter is still alive. I told you that she had secrets."  
"She must've had a really different take on life with all that she saw." Ro sighed and swiveled her chair then took a sip of her cappuccino. It'd grown cold over the minutes she'd ignored it in favor of roaming through the information highway. A tap at the screen closed the window that had displayed the article. While she typed in the memorized address to the newspaper her brother was a journalist for, Ro looked hastily at Zeta who was lingering beside her with a purpose. "What is it?"  
"I've found a place for you to rest."  
Ro turned her chair around to him, using her foot on the rung supporting the computer's table. "I always thought we'd go back to California. I like California. Full of strange people, but I suppose that's why I like it."  
"It's too far. I wouldn't run the risk of you traveling across the country again. You need rest. Now."  
Ro began to open her mouth to protest, a little temper firing inside. It was that part of her that disliked authority. The independence in her squashed such attempts, even those infrequent attempts from Zee.  
"Don't argue with me," Zeta declared. He blinked and was transformed once again into the innocent human hologram. "Please?"  
She'd never heard him talk like that before, not to her or to anyone. Ro was stunned so badly that to say anything would've required more thinking than what she was capable.   
"Ro," Zeta started, reaching over to shut off the computer, and he looked at her again, surprised he still had her attention. "You're not well. Admit it. A rest would be a good thing for you. It'd be the only thing you need. A week, maybe two."  
Ro slid off the chair and landed on the floor with a cushioned thud. She brushed her way past Zeta, her pride a little injured. It always prickled her pride when he knew her so well. "A week, maybe two," he'd said. She knew she was sick. She was exhausted. Seven to fourteen days of harmless solitude would be good for anyone who was as worn out as she was, physically and mentally.   
Still, she didn't like the idea. It was that inkling inside of her, an intuition that told her she knew what would happen if she consented to rest.  
By the time she was out in the parking lot and waiting at the door of the locked vehicle, Ro was willing to let Zeta have his way. Let her rest. It didn't have to be forever. The rain had grown to a steady, cool pulse, and Ro absentmindedly traced patterns in the roof of the vehicle, pooling the droplets. She tried not to think of how terribly boring resting would be.  
Zeta promptly arrived, carrying in one hand the map and Ro's cappuccino in the other. He handed both articles to her once they were inside. When he was about to start the power, Ro's voice halted his movement.  
"Fine," she said as a reluctant sigh, "I'll go. Take me to this place that you have in mind. Just--don't expect me to like it. Sitting still for a week or so isn't exactly what I'm used to."  
He smiled at her. "You'll get used to it."  
She couldn't smile back. It wasn't in her. "We'll see."  
Zeta looked through the windshield to concern himself with the dark road, yet he kept the secret partial grin on his face for another moment.   
"Hey," Ro said, "headlights would be good here."  
Zeta quickly flipped on the lights, and the beams shot forward to illuminate the semicircle in front of the vehicle. He forgot about the amenity sometimes, too used to seeing well at night. "I'm sorry."  
Ro sipped her cappuccino, the very last of it, just to keep from breaking out in dispassionate laughter. She was more elated by the idea of a real rest than she let on. Even though she knew what was coming. The inevitable.  
She'd survive. She always did. 


	21. Twentyone

21) 

Another few hours in the car, heading south, brought them to the Atlantic shore of North Carolina, near the city of Wilmington. The time was very early morning, nearly one, when they finally stopped. In his usual task-oriented manner, Zeta was out of the car right away, and Ro followed shortly. While she shut the door and stretched her arms and legs, she could discern the sound of the sea not far away. A humming sound, almost, or like sandpaper over a smooth surface. She lifted her face into the breeze, enjoying the moment, almost feeling her nerves soothed by the sea-fresh wind. Maybe the rest was a good idea after all her complaining and trepidation.  
"You do have good taste, Zee," she said. Ro casted him a glance, and he was thoughtful, on the other side of the vehicle. In a way he was sort of Venusian, appreciating pretty things that pleased his two favorite senses: hearing, sight. Though his sense of smell was poor, Ro knew he had at least a slight understanding of how the air of North Carolina was drenched by the taste of the sea.   
Dashing from the house that towered behind them, across the parking lot and to Zeta's side was a small and dark man, very humble, as though he'd been born only to serve. He spoke with a Middle East accent, just a delicate one, as though only a mere fraction of his life had been spent outside the States. "Mr. Smith, I presume?"  
Zeta nodded. "Mr. Ishmael. We spoke on the phone."  
"Yes. Nice to meet you."  
Ro watched as the two shook hands. Zeta had taken the option of calling ahead to announce their unusual arrival time. To Mr. Ishmael, the owner of Eden Resort, the time was not within his limits of kindness to his guests. He showed them every courtesy he could, no matter at what odd hour they arrived. It was one of the attributes lost and missed in over-sized chain hotels. Ishmael was a man alone in the hospitality industry; his resort was independently owned and operated, with the help of Gotham City investors who occasionally stayed free of charge. Ro lifted an eyebrow and silently wondered what sort of character Ishmael was. She hoped that, whatever he was, he was honest and genuine.  
"And where is the young lady?" Ishmael asked, then peered through the dark, only to spot the girl's bright blonde head. "There she is!" He smiled like he could not help it. Life was too beautiful and had been so good to him. He took Ro's hand gently in his own, which was warm and soft, friendly. "I am Ishmael Ishmael, Miss Smith. I am so glad you've decided to stay with us."  
Ro thought maybe she was glad, too. But she was too tired to say anything. The strange world of the North Carolina shore took on a surreal feel to her, and she felt herself lapsing into a dreamy state. She enjoyed walking into the lobby of Eden's lodge. The chandeliers overhead were dimmed to a pleasing mid-range glow, as if to give the house some sleep, and everything was still, empty, satisfyingly lifeless. Their three sets of feet echoed across the pale marble floor as Ishmael Ishmael made his way across to the check-in table. Ro signed the register while Zeta took care of fixing a room. The hotel was hardly busy that time of year, right after school had started, before the fall color, after the warm temperature of the ocean. Ishmael was able to give them his best accommodation, over-looking the water, on the east side of the thirteen-bedroom, thirty-room mansion. Ro was just happy to see the room, to know the place was hers for as long as she wanted it. And it was gorgeous, simply and elegantly gorgeous. Posh, modern, airy, with an atmosphere that reflected such qualities. Ro felt immediately at home.  
As soon as Ishmael Ishmael left, after many cordial goodnights, and every word ending in a sort of endearing laugh, Ro tugged off her shoes and socks, and allowed her toes the pleasure of wafting through the plush mauve carpet.   
"What a funny little man," she said to Zeta. "Ishmael Ishmael! What sort of name is that?"  
"Israeli," replied Zeta, as he looked out the set of double doors, beyond it's long wavy layers of sheer polyester covers. "Hebrew is the accent I detected. There's a nice view."  
Ro severed herself from the soft bed to stand beside Zeta. She looked out over the expanse of night, nodding her agreement. It was lovely, at least what could be seen to a human at such an hour. She unlocked the door at the push of a small button, and it swept into the wall automatically, out of the way. Ro stepped on the iron balcony of the second story. "Imagine the sunrises you can see from here." Ro leaned her arms over the railing, and again Zeta couldn't understand the logic of her attempts to play with danger. She always seemed to walk a tight-rope, nearly at the edge of harm, but she always managed to elude it, like a master escape artist. He began to turn away from the door, as he had not stepped on the balcony at all, it didn't interest him, and he felt he should inspect the room. Everywhere they went, he inspected. Just to be on the safe side.  
"Hey, Zee," Ro called. They watched each other intently for a moment, and Ro gave a shallow sigh. "I want to tell you that I---" she stopped and tried again. "Thanks."  
Zeta only nodded, almost subdued by the gratitude. He hadn't done much, but Ro wouldn't understand his modesty. "I think you'll be safe here."  
"What about that thing that's trying to kill us? That new thing, the one who keeps following us. What if it shows up?"  
"It won't."  
"You don't think it's the IU7, do you?"  
"No, I don't think it is. This is someone who's human. It isn't a machine. Machines haven't the proper logic to play a ruse like what we witnessed on the EHT."  
"You know what they say," Ro said with a snide grin, "never send a machine to do a human's job."   
"In this case I'm sure the NSA would agree with you. It's safe here. There's that--savior--to think about now. If anyone had followed us here, this thing would let you--us--know." He disappeared inside, the curtain lifted wildly in his wake, until it stilled only to be caught in the faint draft of the sea wind.   
Ro allowed his pronoun slip to go unnoticed, at least verbally, but it was noted and pressed with rue. She examined the view again, the ocean at its loudest during the quiet night, due to the lack of encroaching background noise. Her forehead dropped to her wrist, and she knew that she couldn't permit herself to think anymore about anything for the rest of the night, what few hours of it remained. They were the longest hours, between midnight and sunrise. Such hours had never been Ro's favorite. She'd always preferred mornings, when everything was alive and life was given a second chance, the chance to undo the mistakes of yesterday. She wondered how many mistakes she'd bothered to undo and how many more would come in the future. And how many of those will she fix? Not many.  
Her parents' presence in her life, as ghosts and apparitions, even hallucinations of her brother, seemed to disappear, carried away on the movement of air.   
But what had its purpose been in the first place, if they were truly gone?  
She had found them, in a way, all over again in the last peculiar week. Her parents meant something to her, in their appearance, their words, their unmistakable emotional intensity toward their daughter. They had been able to bring her a sense of something she'd perhaps lacked before, perhaps a sense of an ending. She'd known for some time that they were dead, and how they had died, and who had died around them. But she had never fought with it; she'd never given herself a chance to accept it, despite all the times she'd thought of the wretched possibility. Their death had signified nothing to her, not a close, not an ending, just nothing. The only thing it brought to her was Casey, her brother. And Ro wasn't sure how great and heartwarming a reunion it had been. Perhaps the tension between the siblings would explain why she'd had a vision of him as well. Seeing him as a young boy, not the man in his mid-twenties that he was, reminded Ro that he'd been a young orphan once, like her. Once they had been a family, but only briefly. She never called it family. She couldn't even call the past by a sacred name, like memories.   
Everything was gone. Nothing would be the way it had been. She was dealing with that. But why had she expected it in the first place?  
"Because," Ro thought to herself, "there's still a little orphan girl inside that dreams of unrealistic things."  
Ro meandered, her feet a tired shuffle, into the room, only bothering to fling the frothy curtains away from her as she passed, and tying to move out of the door's way before it shut on her.   
Zeta was reading, stretched out on the wide bed, in a separate alcove of the enormous suite. He was scanning carefully the glowing display of the Reader, a device that displayed books from data on a mini-disc, similar to handheld games, and something Zeta tried never to travel without. A useful invention, and one of the most popular in the last twenty years. On a seven-by-five foot screen the text of the book was displayed, and font color, size, and background could be changed simply to suit. Pressing an indented button on either side or at the bottom of the Reader scrolled the text. Different discs could be purchased for a fair amount of money, usually between twelve and twenty credits, and each new disc contained an entire book, unable to be erased or altered, but favorite lines and passages could be stored for easy perusing at a later date. It was also equipped with satellite internet for downloading news articles from specific communications companies around the globe. Zeta loved the Reader, it suited his fast processing mind, but Ro still preferred the feel of a real book in her hands, the shifting of paper no longer made from trees, but from closely woven synthetic and soy fibers that would outlast wooden pulp.   
As she saw him deep in his study, Ro wanted to yell at him for the thoughts she knew he was having, for his cunning plans, but she lacked the energy. Instead, she keeled upon the bed beside him. For a brief second, she espied what book he was reading. Psychology of Human Behavior, one of his favorites. He could reread any book or anything at will, just by erasing the memory. But Ro doubted he erased much of what he learned.  
Zee paused his perusal, hit the small red button to mark his place, and looked down at Ro, whose eyes were closed. He set a gentle hand on the side of her head, and returned to his book.  
"Goodnight, Ro," he whispered. "Sleep well." He may as well have said it for his own sake, for all the good it did for Ro. She was already lost in the beautiful world of natural human unconsciousness.  
Ro wasn't surprised that when she awoke late the next morning, all primly tucked into bed, under the soft covers, she was alone. Without rising from the bed she examined the alcove, but could not see beyond the walls into the other room. For a moment she listened, and the only thing she could hear was the sound of the sea and draperies fluttering, since the door to the balcony had been opened. Sun flew in madly, all golden and promising, and Ro could see its warm face as it spread like a wheat field beyond the alcove. Her bedroom was dark, the window shut and leaving out the sunlight by means of a brocade curtain and heavy shade. The dark was nice, in its own macabre way, but Ro was ready for daylight.   
Ro tossed from her side to her back, rubbing the sleep and dullness from her tired, unawake eyes. What would the world be like for her today? Judging by the pain deep in her gut, and also the dull bruise from her injury, it wouldn't be a great one, but it was survivable. All her days had been surmountable, or so it seemed, as she was still alive.  
Weakly, in a very unanimated fashion, Ro tumbled from the high bed and tipped her head from the alcove to the empty living room. Only the sunlight was there, along with the wind from the open door, the shifting of the curtains to sway gently like undersea creatures. Ro fell against the wall and slid down to the floor. She placed the palms over her ears to keep out the silence of the room and the noise of the ocean, only to hear her heart beat. She wrenched shut her eyes and said to herself the word that tried to contradict the improbable but the likely. "No!"  
It wasn't until she was downstairs a bit later that all her fears were finally confirmed. Ishmael Ishmael was behind the clerk counter, shuffling through papers, as cheerful as he'd been last night. He looked up when he saw the lanky blonde saunter tiredly into the lobby.  
"Good morning, Miss Ro. How did you sleep?"  
"Like a baby without a security blanket," retorted Ro.  
Ishmael was momentarily thrown off by such a witty remark, but he found a moment to smile at her, his charming smile to which Ro was not even immune.  
Ro set her arms atop the counter, where she had checked-in the night before. It seemed like ages ago. She scanned Ishmael's dark brown eyes, his dark features, and uttered a question void of timidity. "Ishmael, have you seen Mr. Smith this morning?"  
Ishmael Ishmael only looked back at her, somehow blankly, void of conscious thought a long second. "Yes, Miss Ro. You didn't see him?"  
"No. Why would I be asking you if I had?"  
Ishmael hesitated. He furrowed his thick eyebrows. "I just assumed you knew he was--leaving."  
Ro's heart flopped over in her chest, a most disturbing movement she hadn't felt in months, maybe years. Her pale hands gripped the edge of the counter, though she was in no danger of losing her balance. She just wanted to feel that the world wasn't falling out from under her, or that the sky wasn't sinking upon her.  
Ishmael's face brightened, though he saw well the look of horror on Miss Ro's face. "He did leave a message for you. He almost forgot about it, but turned around asked me to give it to you when I saw you this morning. He didn't want to go back upstairs and disturb you, he said." While he spoke the words quickly, Ishmael fetched the message from the horizontal filing system on the back desk. He slid it across the counter for Miss Ro. Her hand shook when she lifted it, peeled apart the quarter-folded page.   
When she read the words, she looked up at Ishmael. "What is this? A riddle?"  
Ishmael shrugged. He hadn't read the message. How would he know? "Is Mr. Smith fond of riddles, Miss Ro?"  
Ro read over the lines again in consternation, holding true contempt for Zeta and hating him deeper than any other time since they met.  
Ishmael was dismayed at Ro's appearance. She looked most unwell. "I understand, then, that you didn't know he was going to leave?"  
"No," she uttered nearly inaudibly. "No. I didn't know."  
Even if she'd had her suspicions, even if she thought it was possible, she was still broken inside when she was met the grim reality. Ro managed to take leave of the lobby and the building, Ishmael saying something to her that she didn't comprehend. Her thoughts were elsewhere. Ishmael Ishmael knew it was for a good reason that he was ignored.   
Ro fumbled through the doorway and out to the beautiful morning. A morning consisting of an azure sky and a bright sunlight that Ro hardly noticed. She traipsed with a purpose along the stone and garden-lined path that was a guide to the east side of the manor, heading to the ocean that beckoned. The note Zeta had left her was still in her hand, and, at times when the wind would catch the paper like the angles of a kite, she wanted to let it slip from her fingers and float far away. But she couldn't. She had to read it a dozen or more times before she could understand it, before it would seep through.   
When she made it to the edge of the low cliff, the ocean's waves louder as they crashed below, Ro found the steps that lead to the beach and descended. The beach was empty, no guests loitered there, no one's footprints were in the sand. Only the call of some gulls and the echoes of old ghost ships were company. The line of rough pale sand was dotted by the occasional protruding rock and the more frequent globs of green seaweed and kelp. Ro found a dry place to sit, with the sun on her shoulders and the ocean's rhythmic movements before her. She held the note up again and read it. Zeta's penmanship was loopy, significative curves and sweeping corners, almost old-fashioned, like something from a forgotten century. Ro thought it a peculiar way to program a robot, with such antique printing capability, though it was elegant.  
There was no written salutation, no greeting. The first words were the title of a poem by Byron. It was the poem that most puzzled her.

"So we'll go no more a roving  
So late into the night,  
Though the heart be still as loving,  
And the moon be still as bright.

"For the sword outwears its sheath,  
And the soul wears out the breast  
And the heart must pause to breathe,  
And Love itself have rest.

"Though the night was made for loving,  
And the day returns too soon,  
Yet we'll go no more a roving  
By the light of the moon."

At the very last corner of the paper, as though in an afterthought, Zee had written: "Be well, Ro." And the only thing he signed it with in farewell was the letter 'Z', small and beautifully printed.   
Ro stared at the letter in a horror she was growing accustomed to. What did the poem mean? She couldn't take it for what it stated, that would be too easy. Maybe it had another meaning. Maybe there was an intention of giving up and turning themselves in, so that they would never rove again.   
Ro gulped. "That can't be it."  
The words were doubted even as they fell out of her mouth. Zeta wouldn't turn himself in. The idea was repugnant to him--and to her. They were a team, a pair, an inseparable unit of congruity; if they did anything so awful it would be done together.  
She refused to think anymore about it, though the suspicion nagged at her terribly.  
"Miss Ro! Miss Ro!" a woman shouted from the direction of the staircase from the beach to Eden Resort.  
Ro looked up and saw a woman with long black hair, tanned skin and big black eyes run to her. A young woman, no more than twenty-five, with a friendly face and a tender spirit, who looked almost Romany. Ishmael's wife, Ro wondered. The woman's full and long prairie skirt flew about her legs as she stepped swiftly, barefoot, and anklets jingling like bells, across the sand and jumping over the occasional pile of kelp. As soon as she was near enough to Ro, the woman collapsed on the sand, panting, and her eyes brightened by the exertion. The fingers she set over Ro's cool arm were cozy and maternal.   
"I'm Shirah Ishmael. Ishmael's wife. He sent me out here to look for you. He said you seemed unwell. Bad news?"  
Ro, unable to find much to rebel against, flipped over the note to Shirah Ishmael. She watched the beautiful woman's heavily-lashed eyes dance through the lively words of the brief poem and, finally, to the caption below. Ro took the note when it was returned to her. Shirah was pensive.  
"I see," she said.  
Ro knew she didn't, really. It would be a common misconception. "We're not like that," she said. "He's just a friend. And God pity me if he wasn't."  
Shirah nodded, and again set a hand on Ro in a sympathetic touch. Her warmness was almost therapeutic.  
Ro looked out to the waves of the sea, for the first time really noticing it, and able to appreciate its vastness, solitude, mystery. She could drown in the feeling it procured in her. "There comes a point when you've known someone for so long, and they know too much about you, and you know too much about them, that you go past all the boundaries of any earthly relationship." Ro met Shirah's glance. "That's what it is like with him."  
"Soul mates, you mean?"  
Ro nearly laughed. People were at their most ironic when they were doused in ignorance. "Sure," she said through a crooked grin. "That idea would work."  
Ishmael Ishmael came wading through the sand, hollering to his wife and Ro. He landed beside them, dry grains lifted by his feet as he stopped. "Shirah! Miss Ro! I was worried about you! Are you all right?"  
Shirah knew how to handle her husband. She smiled at him, the same warm smile she'd given Ro, as though full of equal love for everyone. "She'll be okay. But I think she would probably like some breakfast. Maybe a brunch."  
Ro got to her feet, feeling steady and like herself again. She hated to be shocked. She dusted herself off while replying to Shirah's kindness. "That's okay. I think it'd be better if I checked out instead."  
Ishmael was eager to quell Ro's apprehension and dispel any thought of leaving when she so clearly needed to stay. "No, no, Miss Ro. You don't have to leave just yet. I think this place is very good for what you're suffering from."  
Ro blinked, dumbfounded. Suffering? He had no idea.  
"Our house is a good place for young ladies to heal their broken hearts."  
Ro let that one go without a contradiction. In a way, it wasn't far from the truth, though her heartbreak derived from a dissimilar existence than what Ishmael believed. But, really, not by much.  
Shirah took Ro by the elbow, already feeling kindred with the girl. A wounded heart and a kind soul were like adjoining stars in the heavens. A magnetism across a great distance to find and console, to be found and to be consoled.  
"Come up to the house and you can have breakfast. There won't be much left, but you can come to our kitchen, and I will prepare whatever you want."  
"And anything you need," Ishmael said, his accent making him seem like an innocuous accidental hero, "you just ask."  
"Anything?" Ro repeated just to be sure.  
Shirah and Ishmael nodded.  
Ro said her favor in no hesitation. "I'd like a ride into Wilmington as soon as possible. There's someone I need to talk to."  
After a brief brunch in Shirah and Ishmael's private kitchen, Ro's simple request was granted, carried out by Shirah. Since Ishmael was busy running the hotel and transacting business, it left Shirah able to do the chores in town. Ro immediately discovered that the Ishmael's had two small children. Manoah Ishmael, who was five, spent the mid-afternoon hours in a local pre-school program. And Mishael Ishmael was barely two; a lovely little boy with curly dark locks, soft and smooth, who followed his mother everywhere. Mishy, as he was called, soon took a liking to Ro, which was something she didn't anticipate. Once again it proved her point that kids found her fascinating and people generally liked her, though she still couldn't understand why. "It must be the vibes I give off," she thought to herself. Mishy reached out from Shirah's hold, wanting to be held by no one else but the new stranger he'd set his keen brown eyes upon. Ro reluctantly lifted him from Shirah, and the boy was immediately contended. Shirah joked and said that Ro had made a new friend as she softly touched the baby's rounded cheek. The boy embarrassedly smiled and dipped his head from view of his mother, pressing his face against Ro's shoulder. Ro had to admit that she liked the little guy. She would look beyond the edge of her front seat in the car, on their way to Wilmington, and whenever she did Mishy would smile and utter childish greetings to her.   
Once in Wilmington, Ro decided Shirah should let her off at the nearest Ground Wire. Shirah consented, and they devised that as soon as she was done with her chores, she would stop by again later and pick up Ro. In agreement, Ro left the car, waved goodbye to Mishy, and headed into the Ground Wire.   
It wasn't like the one in Richmond. That had been independently owned, decorated how the manager wanted. The Wilmington Ground Wire was more like the ones she was used to. Modern, high-ceiled, its cool pastel blue floor, seats, counter, chairs mixed with the pale golden yellow wall color and accent touches here and there. Ro wandered to the bar and sat on the stool. She shooed away the robotic waiter, who insisted on taking her order.  
"Welcome to Ground Wire. May I take your order, please? Welcome to Ground Wire. May I take your order, please?" it barked.  
"Get away from me, stupid thing!" Ro yelled at the machine, trying to be as quiet as possible. The attention brought out one of the humans from the back, a female assistant manager. Before the woman could protest, Ro spoke. "I'd like to use your phone."  
"We have a pay phone---"  
"No, no, it won't work. They'll be calling here. I'll just need to call and leave a brief message for someone. It's really important." Ro must've said something right, or just in the right way, because the manager consented. Ro was given the phone and allowed to use it for only five minutes. Ro gave her gratitude, and the manager returned to the back out of sight. Ro dialed the number adroitly, the phone relying purely on digital connection, without the more modern amenity of video capture. As Tiff's computer messaging service prompted, Ro punched in the number of the local Ground Wire by finding it printed on a nearby stack of business cards. She hung up when through, then tediously waited, tapping her long fingers on her arms as she had them crossed on the sill of the counter. She stared at the phone, waiting. It finally rang to life, and a few patrons were startled by the unexpected noise. Ro lifted the receiver eagerly to her ear.  
"Tiff," she said, "it's me."  
Tiff, back home in Hillsburg, cradled the phone to her shoulder as she wandered the length of her bedroom. "I figured. I didn't recognize the number. Where are you now, girl?"  
Ro wasn't ready to answer. "Is the---" she looked around and remembered she was in a public place. "Is your line secure?"  
"Yes," Tiff said. "I bought some time before I called. If the NSA finds out, tough luck. I'm not going to tell them the truth. You can talk. It's all right."  
Ro was grateful for Tiff's recognizance for the safety of both of them, and acting upon it before it was too late. "All right. Well, I'm North Carolina at a Ground Wire near the coast. I'm in a kind of convalescence right now. Zee's idea."  
"Oh, that sounds nice. I think you need it. I was really worried about you."  
"But, Tiffy, listen. Zee took off this morning. I don't know if he's coming back. You haven't heard anything this morning, have you? Any news? Did he turn himself in?"  
Tiff ran a hand over her combed-back hair, damp from having just been washed. She sighed into the mouth piece. "No, nothing. I think he would've told me."  
"He?" Ro asked. "He who? Who he?"  
"I mean Agent West."  
Ro rolled her eyes and huffed. She remembered what Zeta had told her yesterday about Tiffany and West's premiere meeting, and it boiled Ro's mind to anger. "Tiff!"  
"Well, he would've," was Tiff's bold retort, though behind the words held a softness. "He was here last night, asking me questions about you."  
"What else was he going to do? Of course he's going to ask you questions about me."  
"No, not the usual questions. He wanted to know about you. I mean really know you. He asked me what you were like when you were younger."  
Ro chuckled, trying to imagine the look on Orrin West's face when Tiff told him the Holy Terror of Maryland that had been Rosalie Rowen.   
Tiff changed the subject, no longer interested in thinking of West's visit when Ro seemed to be in trouble. "Why'd Zee leave?"  
"I don't know."  
"He'll probably come back."  
"He'd better."  
"He wouldn't wish to get on your bad side. H'mm. Does he even know you have a bad side?"  
"Sure he does. He knows I'm not perfect." The idea of Zeta having ignored all of Ro's dislike for a few million people in the world made her snicker. "But I am worried. He's been weird lately."  
"You've been weird lately, too." Tiff was quiet while trying to find the right words to console her sister. All the words seem like failures. "He cares about you. He'll be back."  
"He took your car, Tiff. And he left me without a way to pay the hotel bill."  
"I don't care about the car. But the fact that he left you without being able to pay your bill just goes to show you that he'll be back. I doubt he'd leave you stranded. That's not Zee. You know it isn't."  
Ro knew, but there she was, facing the possibility. "If you hear anything, put an ad in the personals. Think of something clever. I'll know it's you. Okay? I don't want to give you the number to the place I'm staying."  
Tiff understood. "I'm sure nothing will happen. But I'll keep an eye out. Maybe he'll come back up here for some reason. How did you two manage to get away?"  
"Well," Ro scooted past a couple of empty stools, to the end of the bar, where she was farthest from the ears of the locals, "it was bizarre. Someone saved us. Bennett was there. He had me by the throat, a knife at my side."  
"Rosalie!" Tiff interrupted, unable to contain her fright.  
"I'm fine," Ro said dismissively. "A little puncture, but I'm fine. I don't think Bennett really has a violent bone in his body. Anyway, Jimbo was knocked out by a tranquilizer that Zee says was shot by some child from across the street."  
"A child? That's strange. On purpose?"  
"Yes, on purpose. We got lucky, because Bennett was the only one there."  
"I'm glad you got away. West was here when he got the call that you were in Spring City."  
"How did they know?"  
"I didn't ask him that. You know I couldn't. He didn't tell me that's where you were, but I knew. He left in a hurry."  
"What about the other one?"  
"Agent Rush, you mean. She was here, but left before West did. That's when he asked me about you. He said he wanted to get inside your head a little more."  
"Good luck to him," Ro said slyly. "If he does, he should tell me where my mind is. I'd like to know." She looked around the café to see if the manager was leering, about ready to hang up the phone if she didn't do it first. Luckily, Ro saw no one gawking at her abrasively, and even the robot servant was disinterested. She was pleased with the moment of invisibility, knowing, for a brief interlude, what it was like to live in anonymity.  
"He doesn't know what he's fighting for. You elude him. It pisses him off. And I'm so glad." Tiff gave another expiration into the phone.   
"You like him!" Ro said, in a cruel, joking whisper. "You like Orrin West!"  
"I do not! Rosa!" Tiff retaliated, and, even though Ro was far away, Tiff could feel her cheeks turn hot. "How could you think such a thing? It's positively mortifying."  
Ro didn't bother to burn Tiff further. It was a little scary, as though fate was drawing back the last protective and secure layer of casing it'd thrown over Ro. She would not lose Tiffany Morgan as an ally. "Stay away from him, Tiff. Please," she spoke in a dimmed, serious voice. "You can't trust them. You can't trust him."  
"Yes, I know, Ro. I don't trust him. I hate the NSA. You know how much I hate the NSA. West is no different. He isn't."  
Ro believed her, at least moderately. "I've got a lot of hope for you, Tiff. You can't leave me now."  
"Oh, honey," Tiff said, and drew in a long, slow breath. She flopped on the edge of her bed and tried to swallow back the tears rushing to her eyes. "I won't abandon you now, sweetie."  
Ro smiled briefly, a mist of water filling her eyes as well. Any other day such a phrase wouldn't have phased her. Her sensitivity, usually in the subhuman range, was abnormally sky-high. "We'll find a way, Tiff. There's got to be a way."  
"I know, Ro. Soon, too. I wish I was there to bring you some comfort. You sound like you need it. Do you want me to come down?"  
"No," Ro said, though the offer was tempting. "That would only make them suspicious. You stay there. I'd better get off the line now."  
"All right, I'll let you go. If you need something, you call again. And I'll find a way to get a message to you if I hear anything about Zee. I'm sure he's fine. And I know he'll come back. Just wait there. He'll return. He wouldn't leave you now. I won't either. We're your devoted angels. We'd go to the grim underworld and Heaven just for you, like you have done for us."  
Ro loved the thought, even appreciated it. But she couldn't help her cynicism. "Why don't you tell that to West?"  
"I might, someday, when he's ready to believe me."  
"Don't hold your breath. I gotta go," Ro said, just as the manager began to make an angry appearance. "Bye, Tiff."  
"Wait, Ro!"  
"What? Make it snappy."  
"I just wanted to say that--um--" Tiff covered her shut eyes with the back of her limp wrist. "I love you, Ro."  
It was shocking to the very core of her soul. She lost her wind for a moment, half-laughing, half-crying. "Thank you, Tiff. I don't think anyone's ever told me that before, that I can remember."  
"People should say it more. I'll say it more."  
Ro wiped off her smile as the manager spied on her from the end of the bar. Ro felt uncomfortable, but managed to say one last thing to Tiff. "I love you too, Tiffy. Speak to you soon. Bye."   
The call ended. The line went dead and the phone shut off automatically. It was silent and still in her hand, a lifeless artifact. She stared at it, still stunned at the words she'd heard through the device. The woman came over, and Ro handed her the phone. The manager looked a little started when she saw that the girl's eyes were red, touched with a film of tears. The woman was thanked again, then presently vanished from view.   
Ro collapsed her head in her hands, worn out, exhausted, sad. She hated that feeling, the crack of a broken heart and the loneliness it exuded. But the pain was too strong, radiating everywhere it could ooze, and her feeble hate had lost its battle long before drawing a sword.   
The recovery from the war wounds seemed impossible. Amputation never heals. There were new scars forming. 

--

Notes

The poem Zeta gives to Ro  
Lord Byron, _So We'll Go No More A Roving_. (Not one of his better poems.)


	22. Twentytwo

22) 

It was due to Ro's popularity with Mishy and Manoah Ishmael that she became good friends with the owners of Eden Resort. But it was by her own recognizance, and perhaps her dramatic situation, which allowed her to dine with the Ishmael's privately the first evening. But it was the boys' inquiries after Ro the following day that firmly established Ro's place in the Ishmael home.  
Their apartments were on the highest level of the manor, the fourth floor. There were six rooms: three bedrooms, a fine kitchen, living room and enormous bathroom, all providing ample space for the Ishmael family. Ro grew to know the home well, and even felt comfortable there, though she spent every night in her own second-floor suite.   
The Ishmaels found an uncanny delight in Ro. She was young, smart, clever, energetic, someone who could keep up with the active children, and who even liked playing around them, making her presence known in virtual reality games as well as in their lives. By the end of her second day, Ishmael Ishmael had stopped calling her "Miss Ro" constantly, and she was now "Ro," and, less occasionally, "dear" or some foreign pet name that he often used with his boys, the proper Hebrew sound of which Ro never quite caught.  
On her third morning, Ro awoke late to the pungent and sweet scent of lilies in her room. She dashed out of bed to find the bouquet of blooming white flowers in a gleaming purple and blue glass vase on the table. There was no card, no message, and Ro lingered over the flowers thoughtfully. When she asked Shirah about them later, Ro was told that they'd been delivered not long before from an anonymous friend. Ro idly wondered if they'd been sent by Zeta, but it seemed far too unlikely. He'd never do something so prosaic. And every morning afterward she awoke to a new bouquet of flowers freshly delivered, in many different varieties. Her favorite, however, were the orange tiger lilies. She felt they reflected her tangy and open personality.  
Through her days of quiet rest, Ro learned to let go of things that were beyond her control, namely Zeta's disappearance and utter abandonment of her. It was nothing she could help, and she didn't try. By the dawning of the forth day, Ro even believed she understood his peculiar action. She had been sick, very unwell, and perhaps he sensed she needed to be left alone for a while in order to straighten herself out. It was wrong of Zeta to make such a massive, damaging assumption. Ro couldn't help but feel that, in a way, he had been right. The intuitiveness of the robot into her own mind only irked her further. Sometimes it just provoked her into an odd little smile. Zeta was many things, and many things he was not, but he was always surprising. He had known what would heal her. Ro had her coffee in the mornings, her tea in the afternoon with the Ishmaels, usually with Shirah, and over such reflective times in companionship as well as solitude, Ro knew she was healing.   
Most of her days she spent lounging around and talking with Shirah. Ro discovered that Shirah was an immigrant who'd been sent to the states six years ago to marry Ishmael, a man she'd never met, but whose families were ancient acquaintances. This horrified and fascinated Ro at the same time. Arranged marriages hardly occurred anymore; it went against nearly everything that the world stood for in 2043 AD. Shirah, however, said that she'd been pleased with the arrangement, not particularly because she wanted to be a wife and mother, but because she was happy to reach the shores of America. She had a life of her own, a feminist in her way, taking on the world quietly, raising her children with love and peace, teaching them that justice and equality is love, that patience and understanding is the embodiment of love. Ro was fascinated by Shirah's philosophy of the world, and often listened in deep attention.   
The times that she was not visiting with Shirah, or playing out of doors on fine September evenings in the company of Manoah and Mishy, Ro spent sitting in the common room of the resort's first floor. Usually, on the table beside the chair she favored, rested an iced glass of club soda filled with bright red cherries, laced by a drop of vanilla syrup. Shirah concocted the unique beverage especially for Ro, from the bar in the common dinning room. Mrs. Ishmael added a special touch to the drink, and Ro didn't know what it was, but she no longer doubted that some people in the world held a certain magic. Shirah Ishmael was one of those people. While she sipped the beverage delicately, Ro would try her best to focus on television, but it never had interested her. Most of the time her thoughts would wander, reminding her of things in the distant or more recent past, and she would grow to miss Tiff, Casey, the Dumes', but especially she would miss Zeta.   
On the late afternoon of her sixth day of rest, Ro stumbled happily through the door of the main lobby, having been chased inside by ornery Manoah, who ran the opposite direction in giggles. Ro tilted over at her waist, catching her breath.   
"Ishmael," she said to her friend behind the counter, "your kids wear me out!"  
Ishmael snickered and smiled. "They are very fond of you."  
"It's mutual. They're--sweet." It wasn't a word she said often, especially with kids, and she used it then as a sort of test, to see if it suited her. She wasn't sure.   
Ishmael paused a moment as though about to say something, but he just gave her another grin and nodded. "There's a package for you, Ro. Just arrived."  
"From who?"  
Ishmael stepped from the counter, out the side door, carrying with him a plastic sack sunk at the bottom by weight. "The bookstore in Wilmington, I presume. One of the employees brought it over himself to complete the order." He handed the sack to Ro, and she watched him, waiting for more details. He didn't have many to offer. "I asked who bought it and he said he didn't know, or wouldn't know---" Ishmael looked away, his brow furrowed in self-conference. "It was something like that."  
Ro pried apart the handles of the bag and pulled out what books were inside. Real books, too, just what she liked. No Reader discs. These were older books, used ones, printed early in the century, some forty years previous. Ro set the heavy, thick books on the counter to examine them closely. She felt like it was Christmas. She smiled when she saw to what subject the titles pertained. Celestial mechanics and science. There was even a book on Einstein's five important works, including his papers on relativity, which was what some would argue the birth of modern science. Most of it would probably go over her head, Ro thought, but she didn't care. The other three titles were introductions to astronomy, physics and astrophysics. They were probably a little out of date, but the dusty dates hardly mattered. It was better for her to read the history of astrophysics before moving on to the most recent scientific studies. Ro was pleased by the titles. It was only natural she should thus be confused by their presence.  
"This is stuff you're interested in?" Ishmael asked, after he glanced over the books.  
"A little, yes."   
Ishmael scratched his head, struck by the thought that Ro didn't seem like she had a scientific mind. He hadn't thought much about it, and perhaps she did have a genuine interest in things like physics and astronomy. "Are these from Mr. Smith?" Although he called the girl Ro, to Ishmael Ro's friend was still Mr. Smith, a very foreboding figure who loomed in the background like a hazy alley shadow in a detective novel.   
"Uh," Ro hesitated, organizing the books in front of her in a neat pile, "no. I'm sure these aren't from him. Neither are the flowers. Zee's not like that," she shook her head, her nose in a wrinkle of repugnance. "There maybe a lot of things I don't understand about Zee Smith, but I know one thing: this isn't something he'd do."  
Yet, aside from Tiffany Morgan, Zee was the only one who knew she had a propensity toward studying astrophysics. And it couldn't have been Tiff who sent the books, and it wasn't Tiff who sent the flowers. Tiff didn't know where she was, for one thing, and it wasn't like Tiff, either. Ro knew it was neither Zeta nor Tiffany Morgan. She came to this conclusion firmly while reading the introduction to one of her books later that evening along the empty beach. It wasn't Zeta and it wasn't Tiff. Who did that leave?  
Ro caught her own breath and looked up abruptly from the pages. She stared off into the face of the sea, edging toward her as the moon rose.   
"The Savior!" she said aloud. Then she groaned. That idea, too, seemed impossible. How would it know? Why would it care? Ro closed up the book, thinking it was time she headed back to the house. It was growing dark, the waves edged at her dry bit of sand, and she was getting chilled. She refused to think that it was The Savior who was sending her the batch of fresh flowers daily, and who had bought her books to study. What else might The Savior do?   
Ro checked the electronic ads on the net daily, using the Ishmael's private computer in their apartments. So far she'd seen nothing eye catching. But it was the seventh morning that she asked Shirah if an ad might be placed using the Ishmael's e-mail address. Ro explained that she hadn't an address, but that it was important that this ad be placed. Shirah asked no questions, too sure it meant the world to Ro, and consented. The ad was up by the same evening.  
"Einstein is looking for a dart savior. Is the archer out there?" It was a conspicuous message to be sure, but Ro knew that The Savior would understand, if there really was such a thing.   
But Ro wasn't surprised that the ad went unanswered, and by the following day, after its twenty-four hour birth cycle, the ad disappeared having yielded no lead. Reluctantly, Ro decided to let it go. Obviously The Savior wished to keep its identity perfectly shrouded, otherwise an introduction would've commenced by then.   
Ro was worried that the Ishmaels would think her behavior about the ad and the use of their e-mail address as peculiar. But Shirah had been so loving about the whole thing, as if she knew what sort of madness Ro ran from, that Ro wondered how she could think they were suspicious. They might know something, but whatever they thought it didn't bother them. It was Shirah's magic again, and it would surface later in the day just how much Shirah knew but didn't tell.  
During dinner Ro sat among the Ishmaels, gathered around the table in the kitchen, Mishy beside her in his booster seat. She was like one of the family. A call came up from the lobby by one of the employees that someone of authority wished to speak with Ishmael Ishmael, the owner of Eden Resort. Ishmael went down directly, and gave his wife a withering look. Shirah went on calmly as if nothing had happened. Ro was frightened at the word "authority" and begged to be excused, but didn't wait for permission from Shirah. Ro ran out of the apartment and took the back service elevator to the first floor. Carefully sneaking around corners, Ro halted when she began to hear Ishmael's voice.   
". . . I'm sorry, there is no here by that name," Ishmael said, using his regal manager's tone.   
"What about the description? Blonde hair, blue eyes, about five-four----"  
Ro held her breath and bit her lip. The voice of the second speaker was unmistakably that of Agent West.  
"You have described a few of my employees, sir," was Ishmael's distant yet provoking reply. He added on a chuckle, just to show the agent he was teasing. "I am sorry you've come all the way to Wilmington for nothing."  
"I wouldn't say it was for nothing," West spat, his eyes brimming with fire. He knew he was on the right track, and that Rowen girl was in North Carolina somewhere. Bennett had sent him there to follow up on leads. Agent West was starting to doubt the competency of their tip-off covert, whoever it was. "If I find out you've been lying to me, Mr. Ishmael, I can shut this place down." His tone was fragmented with anger, but it held to an eerie, threatening serenity, like a quiet psychosis. West occasionally thought he verged on the incomprehensible edge of violent psychosis.  
Ishmael was confident in the face of disaster. He didn't believe that any government agent held the single power to wipe out a business. "I am not lying. Please, sir, if you would go now I would appreciate it. Your presence frightens my guests."  
Ro tucked herself closer to the deep doorframe she hid behind, fifteen feet and around the corner from the main lobby. She closed her eyes and titled her head against the frame, praying that West would take the advice, leave, and even skip town.  
West did leave, and Ro followed him with her ears as he left through the front of the building, out the main double doors. She heard as they slid apart to allow him passage and came together again in a muted thud. Ro sneakily dashed between corners and doorways, finding her way to the front of the hotel. When she made it in the main portion of the lobby, she looked over to the counter for Ishmael, but he had already disappeared. The lobby was empty, and Ro fell into a chair set beside a window that looked out to the front parking lot of the resort. Some of the window pane was camouflaged by a leafy palm plant in a high brass planter. She allowed the branches to obscure her image while she espied West. He sat on the perimeter of the steps, in the dim sun of early evening, and took out his tiny short-range communication unit. With the ear piece on, the thin mouthpiece like a two millimeter gauge wire fixed by his face, and the remote for the device in his hand, he began to speak. Ro could barely hear what he said through the window pane.  
"It's West," the agent began. "I'm at the Eden Resort. Look, I don't know who this tipster is, but he or she is starting to lead us on a wild chase, and I'm sick of it. There's no Ro Rowen here . . . . Well, then I wish Bennett would look into his own hunches! . . . . No, I don't care. I'm leaving here now. . . . I'll see you back at The Springs later. . . . Yeah, okay. . . . West out."  
Ro gave a sigh of relief and clasped her hands tightly in front of her, under her chin, as though in a humble amen. She saw the agent slide into his nondescript dark vehicle and vanish from the lot, beyond the window pane through which she viewed the world. Ro set her hand to the frame and tapped her nails.  
"If Zeta doesn't come back soon," she thought in dismay, "I'm going to have to get out of here myself."  
It was too dangerous for her to stay in one spot too long, even if she had been unwell and needed a chance to recover from nervous exhaustion.  
Ro returned to the Ishmaels upstairs, still welcome at the table. They ate through the meal in near silence. But when the children left, Ro remained and was able to question Ishmael directly.  
"Why didn't you tell him I was here?"  
Ishmael raised his dark eyes to her over the rim of his glass. "He had no business knowing."  
"Business!" Ro had risen her voice unnoticeably from the shock of Ishmael's idea. She lowered her volume so the children in the next room wouldn't hear. "Ishmael, he's the--the government! You just don't tell them to--to---"  
"Ro," Ishmael was serious, "I knew that when you got here you were not well. I didn't ask questions then, and I don't ask questions now. It's not my business. It's not that agent's business. Whatever you fight through, you fight through on your own." He lifted his eyebrows in a look to ask whether she comprehended his meaning.  
Ro was never so fond of someone she knew so little about as she was for Ishmael Ishmael at that point. She smiled to give him her sincere thanks without words. And when she and Shirah met each other's gaze, Ro understood inexplicably how much of a hand Shirah had had in her husband's firm opinion. It was Shirah's magical touch again. The radiation of her kindness and goodness exuded far into Ro, and she felt she was a better person just by standing in Shirah's presence.  
Early on the eighth morning, Ro was sound asleep in bed, only to fall out of her dreams by the prodding of something at her arm. A gentle kneading. A soft motorized noise, like a hummingbird's wings. Ro stirred but was still too asleep to lift her eyes to the new day. Minutes passed and the kneading on her forearm continued, until, all at once, it stopped. Ro lifted her eyes slowly, and having thought she heard a faint "meow," she dashed out of bed and made for the living room. At the corner of the open balcony door, Ro saw the flick of a dark brown or black furry tail wisp by and disappear. Ro flew to the opening in a couple long strides and drew away the frothy sheer panels. There was no cat in sight, and nothing stirred except for the leaves on the trees. Ro sighed and looked about the sky of another fine morning. Her tree top balcony, limbs within a skip and jump, provided the perfect escape route for any clawed feline. Ro touched her arm, still able to feel the impression of the paws where they'd pushed so softly against her.  
During breakfast, Ro mentioned her furry visitor that morning. "I had a cat in my room when I woke up," she said, then sipped juice, glancing between Ishmael and Shirah. Mishy bounced cheerfully in his high seat, yelling out the words "Kitty! Kitty!" Ro touched his arm to calm him. He settled immediately.  
"A cat?" Shirah asked. "That's a little unusual."  
"Don't you know of any cats around here?"  
"I'm sure there must be a few," Shirah provided, her voice heavy in its contemplation, "but I don't know of any, especially any that would wander into the hotel rooms."  
The thought of the visiting feline preoccupied Ro's mind for the rest of the day. At least for most of the day. And then she had other things to think about.  
In mid-evening, the sun waning closer to its western shell, Ro sat among the lentils and "delves" of the resort's back landscape, appropriately titled "Delve Garden." A hidden place, lined with hedges, overgrown wisteria no longer in bloom, pine ivy that covered portions of the ground beside the trunks of thick deciduous trees, and the occasional puff of a sleeping azalea bush. This mysterious Eden was a comfort to Ro.   
She had spent so many moments of divine solitude in the Delve Garden in order to find structure in her mind. She had been healed here from the brutality of her past, by the haunting of her parents. Though not over their death and never expecting to be, Ro knew there was very little chance of discovering the truth, finding the things that had belonged to her parents; she would never know what their essential role had been in life, and no one she could talk to would bring her such insight. Ro had learned to let it go, the way that the trees around the garden let go of leaves, one by one. She could focus her attention away from her family, away from the widening gap between her and her brother, and see clearly what her life was. Her life was about freedom.  
Ro was flipping through the pages of her astrophysics book, enjoying the introduction to something she'd contemplated the study of frequently. She was learning, and not only about her own mind, but about science.   
"Not like it'll do me any good!" Ro thought to herself, in belittling fashion. She never suspected she'd have a real chance to further her mind by attending college. It seemed unlikely. She'd have to settle for being self-taught. In the present, this was no regret to her. Even Einstein had had trouble in school and getting into a university. Ro enjoyed learning. If Zeta could learn, she could learn. He was, in a way, her role model. Her lip twisted tightly as she wondered if the idea could be reversed; she wondered if she could be, somehow, Zeta's role model. It suddenly struck her as funny, and she burst a small laugh.   
Manoah crept up behind her, and Ro childishly pretended she didn't hear him so the boy could have his fun. He attempted to startle her by placing his fingertips on her back and shouting out "Boo!" Ro jumped and hollered her feigned fear. Manoah was pleased. Ro set her hands over the boys arms, doused in a long-sleeved cotton shirt. The evening was getting cool, as it usually did along the southern coast of North Carolina in mid-September. Ro had on a sweater as well, a thin ivory thing she'd borrowed from Shirah. It kept the chill away during the hoisted sweep of wind.   
Manoah leaned to Ro and kissed her on her cheek. He shifted on his feet, weight on one foot then on the other. "There's a message for you," he spoke delicately. "_Ima_ said I should bring it to you."  
"A message, huh?" Ro tickled the boy on the sides, and her toppled on the grass in a helpless heap of laughter. "Better tell me what it is! I won't stop until you do!"  
Through his giggles and trying to push away Ro's torturous fingers, Manoah managed to deliver the message. "_Ima_ said you should go to the beach. Someone's waiting for you."   
Ro stopped suddenly, and her breath caught in her throat. "Zeta," she whispered, her stare far away, into the past and the future, but not in the present. Had Zeta finally come back?  
She brought herself in order and helped Manoah to his feet. Carrying her thick science book in one hand and Manoah's in the other, together they walked through the back door of the house, out of the garden. Manoah ran off in the direction of the common room, his short attention span affixed on the sound of the television not far off. Ro set her science book in the employee's only section of the clerk counter, where she knew it would be safe, and being a good friend of the Ishmaels provided Ro with benefits unavailable to other guests. The lobby held no people, no company, and Ro figured most were in their rooms or engaged in some other activity. Ro gave the place a glance in a momentary reverie toward the week she'd spent in solitude, and that loneliness seemed as though it was about to end.   
She wanted it to be Zeta. And, somehow, she knew it would be.  
Once outside the front lobby doors, Ro set a hand to her chest to still her breathing and rapid heart. The attempt was in vain; there was too much excitement and hope in her that would not be easily extinguished. She tufted the over-sized sleeves of her sweater above her thin elbows and dashed for the staircase, then flew down to the beach. The sound of the waves clashing against the sand, clashing against each other, seemed to coexist with her own sense of humanness, and all those automatic mechanics that seemed to make her human were in tune with nature.   
From the cliff above the beach, unusual for that portion of the seashore, the coast was cast in a dark shadow which made perceiving difficult, unless you were a synthoid or blessed by some apparatus which made seeing at night just as easy as seeing during the day. Ro squinted against the blackness, trying to find Zeta's form along the cliff.   
"Zee!" she shouted, completely against all thought. She hadn't even been aware of the words or her voice.   
Zeta looked over, having been perfectly perched like a statue atop one of the higher rocks of the coast. "Audio source recognized" came across his display, and for a moment the words frustrated him. He knew who it was and didn't need his processors to remind him. As Ro traipsed steadily, no jogging, no running, no horse-like canter, just a calm but light step, Zeta hopped down from the rock and landed on the sand. His equilibrium compensators kicked in so he could maintain his balance after an eight-foot drop onto a completely pliable surface. Once he was steadied, Ro was near enough to him that he could distinguish the color of her eyes: a faint blue, and the expression in them: a sort of hostile remorse. She didn't know whether to be elated at his return or hate him for it.   
Ro stopped and folded her arms over her middle, a good foot in front of Zeta. She scrutinized him in an unfamiliar manner, as though she was about to engage him in a physical brawl. The idea was tempting, but her human bones and muscles were nothing to the synthoids adamantium frame, even if he was in hologram.   
Zee dipped his head and a hand tapped at the side of his leg like a nervous boy. "I'm sorry," he said. "I know you're mad."  
Ro growled in her throat and showed her teeth. "Mad isn't exactly the word I would choose. Try infuriated. Try embarrassed. Try scared. Try worried absolutely sick! Any of those would be better than mad!"  
"I understand." Zeta knew that he'd feel awful upon returning, but the expectancy had hardly made the experience easier. "I didn't mean to cause you any grief."  
"Grief!" she repeated, her fists clenched at her sides. "What do you know of my grief, huh?" Ro punched him on the chest to alleviate some of her temperamental frustration. It had to have an escape route somehow. And Zeta wouldn't feel it, no matter how hard she hit him. She was so angry that she wasn't sure she could stand to look at him. Abruptly, she growled again and turned away, as though threatening to leave him there alone.  
Zeta waited patiently. It was curious to see Ro's reaction, to see the human reaction. He tried to understand what it meant, where Ro's violence and irritation stemmed from. It was a more pleasant side of the experience for him, that study into human psychology, and one he hadn't anticipated. When Ro stopped and reversed her steps back to him, a new feeling was there, and a calmer Ro was before him. "Are you better?" he asked. That was what he really cared to know.  
Ro huffed, vexed by his sudden concern of her health. The softness of his voice and the gesture of his interest seeped from her mind the fires of anger. She repudiated her anger. It would no longer exist if she didn't let it. "I'm better, yes. Thank you for asking."  
"I'm so glad." He smiled a little.  
Ro was infected by the innocent smile, not altogether human but more so than when she'd first met the synthoid's Zee Smith persona. "What am I going to do with you? You're hopeless. You leave me for a week, and yet I'm saying you're hopeless. I'm getting soft."  
"You're learning," he corrected her latter statement. "You're just learning to be soft. I wouldn't say you are just yet."  
"Thanks," Ro snickered, appreciating the honestly polluted remark, especially from him. "I missed you. And your knack of always putting me in my dusty little place."  
Zeta didn't quite understand the analogy, but he tried. "I missed you, too."  
"Where have you been, anyway?"  
The lids of the hologram blinked over navy eyes. "I went back to West Country. I went back to Gwennie's."  
This erupted Ro. "You did what?"  
"I went back to Oregon," he repeated.  
"Yes, I caught that. But--why? And why didn't you want me to go with you?"  
"I didn't want you to get sick again. I wanted you to stay here and be well. I was able to find out some information, but very little of it helpful."  
"Like what?"  
"There are some things missing from her house, like it'd been robbed during or just after her death, but not likely before she succumbed to the stroke." Tired of standing still, Zeta began to pace along the shore, and Ro walked beside him. He had her attention, hooked by the truth and her natural curiosity, and he was glad the initial portion of their new meeting was finished. She had forgiven him, and in that forgiveness he was able to forgive himself. Abandoning Ro was not an event he wished to repeat. But he did not pretend that it wouldn't happen again.  
"What sorts of things?"  
"That is one of the piece of knowledge I was unable to obtain. There were policeman everywhere around the mansion, along with her family members and plenty of Glenview residents. I wasn't able to get close enough or bother anyone for information. The townspeople seemed lacking in detailed knowledge of the robbery--if it was a robbery. I would like to investigate this further when I have the opportunity. I didn't stay long, only a few days."  
"Did you see the Dumes'?"  
"No. That's too dangerous, Ro."  
Ro knew that, but thought she would ask anyway. She missed the Dumes', Jas and Julie especially. "You were only gone a few days? What about the rest of the week?"  
"I came back here."  
A numb, thunderstruck Ro squeaked out a protest.  
Zeta wanted to laugh at her, but he couldn't. He could only imitate laughter, not accomplish it on his own. It was still too hard to find something amusing enough to evoke laughter from him. "I've been staying in town. Watching. Waiting."  
Ro huffed and clenched her teeth. "You!--Zeta!" Ro pushed him away at the shoulder, hurt all over again by his desertion. "You knew how upset your note would make me, and you never stopped by sooner to explain?"  
"What was to explain?"  
"The poem," Ro stated slowly, "it was like a mad riddle. Poetry never gets to the point of things, you know. I didn't get what it was supposed to mean. And I tried not to read too much into it."  
"I meant nothing by it. I just thought it was a nice poem. And it reminded me of us, always wondering around at night, under the moon. I told you: I like Byron." Zee winced as he realized, after scanning through the poem in his mind, how she could've taken it the wrong way. "I see. I didn't intend for you to think I was leaving you. But that's not true. I did leave you, though not for good."  
Ro waited, unsure what to say, except that she believed him. And she was glad she hadn't thought the worst. Her optimism saved her from further scarring yet again. "You were cruel to leave at all."  
"I know," he said, a touch full of the smug. A flash of robotic arrogance flooded his stale countenance. "But I was right to leave you."  
Ro lowered her gaze from his. She pushed at him again, and he knew she'd thought he'd been right, too. "Sometimes I don't know what is worse," Ro said. "Being right or being cruel?"  
"Sometimes you can't have one without the other," he replied somberly.  
"Say, Zee," Ro began after a couple paces of silence, "you haven't by chance been sending me flowers everyday, have you?"  
"Flowers?" he reiterated, for the idea puzzled him. He was familiar with the custom of giving flowers as a gift, but it was a gift that died, and therein was the loss of logic. Why give a gift that would die? "No."  
"I didn't think so."  
"Flowers have been sent to you?" Zee was trying to find clues to perhaps solve the mystery.  
"Yes. Everyday a new bouquet. They're bought from a certain florist shop in town. Delivered every morning at eight sharp by a man who knows nothing of how they were ordered. Never a card or a message. Just the flowers. Shirah--that's Ishmael's wife--she puts them in my room when she gets them. I wake up, and there they are."   
Zeta grasped his hands behind his back, the edges of his coat lifted in the light breeze. Flowers?--sent to Ro? It was a beguiling idea. "It's not me," he repeated. "Have you thought of anyone else?"  
"Just The Savior."  
"The Savior. A possibility."  
They had both thought so frequently and so highly of their unknown hero that its uncanny but lofty title was now imagined as being written in proper capital letters, like someone's name. The name of a saint.  
"Why, though? And there's the books!" Ro almost forgot about the books. She repeated quickly and fervently to Zeta the presents she had received. At the tail of the summary, she said that only two people knew she had an interest in science: himself and Tiff. "And it's not Tiff."  
"Not me, either."  
"I didn't think so. That only leaves The Savior. It must know. It must've been present in Hillsburg when I was telling Tiff."  
"Or," Zeta gave an interlude, "at the Greek restaurant in Spring City. We were talking about it then, remember?"  
"That's right. Well, then in either of those places but no where else. The Greek restaurant seems most likely, since it saved us just after we left. What do you think, Zee? Think it's The Savior?"   
Zee stopped and faced Ro. He gazed at her a moment, still in thought. He finally conceded to the idea by a moderate nod of his head. "Yes. It must be."  
"We need to find out who that is."  
"I suppose so, but you see it's not necessary," was Zee's reluctant response. "Or it will show up to us, someday."  
Someday, Ro thought, and it brought a smile to her lips. Zeta's favorite word: someday. Everything would happen someday. Immortals were lucky enough to have the chance to see every someday as it was born and lived and died. Ro would not be so lucky. The thought of her own mortality prompted her to take Zeta's hand in hers. He pressed her fingers gently, an ease to her past week of worry.   
"Oh, Zee, I almost forgot. West was here yesterday!"  
"Agent West? How---?"  
"Ishmael lied to him. Told him I wasn't here." She elaborated in some of the story, and Zeta listened acutely. He surmised that they ought to leave tomorrow, just to be on the safe side. Ro set her head to his arm briefly, just glad he had returned. She felt safer with him close. It'd been a worrisome week for Ro, thinking at first that Zeta had turned himself in, and then the appearance of West, the deliveries from a secret party. If she'd been in danger, however, she would've found a way to escape. She wasn't entirely dependent on the synthoid, but his presence in her life as a bodyguard was a large portion of her appreciation for him, but not so large that it outweighed his advantage as a friend.  
"Are you enjoying them?" he asked. "The books?"  
"Of course. I don't understand half of it yet. But I will." Ro managed an unwilling grin as she looked out to the band of white sand before her. The word was at the tip of her tongue and she allowed it liberation. "Someday."  
They'd traveled across the beach well past the stairs to the house. The sun had turned red far to the west, out of view, and the sky had been blanketed by peach, russet, and the forming midnight blue brushed against the horizon, bleached in dots by the crests of the ocean's waves. Sometimes the white crests in the dark blue water looked like moving stars.  
Ro poked Zeta in his side. "You still owe me a story."  
"I do?"  
"One of the Seven Sisters. The story of Merope. You promised you'd tell me about her."  
"Ah," he interjected, growing wise to the memory of the Seven Sisters and Ro's fascination with the myth. "Merope, yes. The lost Pleiad."  
"I thought Electre was the lost one."  
"Some think she is. Others say it is Merope. I believe in Merope. She is the dimmest star of the visible seven. It seems to fit in astronomical and mythological terms."  
"Why was she lost?"  
"She was ashamed. And to hide her shame she hid herself from her sisters. When they were transformed into stars, she was the dimmest, all because she felt she deserved not to be brighter than the others."  
The power of suggestion, the thoughts of stars, caused Ro to lift her eyes to the expansive galaxy above. But it was too light out still to see but three twinkles in the wide firmament. Ro glanced at Zeta. "Why was she the dimmest?"  
"Because her sisters made her feel ashamed."  
"That was pretty stupid of them. I'm glad I don't have evil sisters like that." Ro momentarily thought of Julie Dumes, who, because of her personality and lifestyle, in turn brought Ro's thoughts to Tiff Morgan. The memory of Tiff telling Ro she was loved gave a fuzzy feeling to her heart. She wanted to tell Zeta about the unlikely incident with her sister, but it wasn't the appropriate time.   
Zeta continued, always in the mood to tell a fable. He enjoyed story-telling, especially to his captive audience of one. "They looked down upon her, all of them. Even Electre, whose imperfect son was overthrown during the fall of Troy. Even Maia, the gentlest of all the sisters, thought Merope unworthy of her fixed place in the Heavens."  
"But--why?" Ro began to lose her patience, and demanded she know why it was that Merope was so ill-favored by her six sisters, and why Merope was thwarted to be the dimmest star of the seven perceptible to an eye scanning the universe. Ro was starting to feel a kinship with Merope.  
"Because," Zeta started, "Merope married Sisyphus. And the six sisters were ashamed of their Merope. They had all married immortals, you understand, but not Merope. She was an immortal who fell in love with a mortal."  
Zeta's hand tightened on Ro's as she replied. Her words were carefully chosen, though they seemed to have a rushed, untended appearance.   
"That seemed to happen a lot back then, didn't it?"  
The synthoid was able to snicker as he glanced at Ro, then out to the infinite sea, up to the skies, where Merope and her six sisters were winking, somewhere, down upon the mortals and immortals of the earth. "Yes, Ro," Zee said through a smile, "it did." 

The story continues in Erasure Attempt.

--

Notes

The Springs  
Agent West uses this term to describe Colspring, the NSA's West Country headquarters in Colorado Springs, CO. You find out all about that in Erasure Attempt.

Ima  
Hebrew. Mother. (ee-mah)

Closing A/N (26/11/03): Predestination was originally finished on 11 September 2002 at 19:55. It was 95,010 words long. Amazingly enough, through all the editing I did, the total word count now is only about thirty words higher. It was written over a period of 24 days. I think I must've been possessed or something. Can you imagine writing 95,000 words in 24 days? That's scary. This delusion continued, however, as I started writing the second story the very next day. While I don't remember much about actually writing this, I know that when I finished it, I played Geri Halliwell's "It's Raining Men" very loud, and there may have been some jigging involved. But that's between me and the past.


End file.
